Dramatic daily view drop

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   JerryFisherposted 5 years ago

   Hi there
   
   I've had a couple of hubs that for the last few years had been getting a steady 250 plus views per day. Over the last few months I've watched them slide to what seems a bottoming out at around 100 views per day. In one hub about ten days ago I got stuck in and added another 2000 words of fresh content. So now that article has around 5000 words and has for a long time had a score of 100. Views have not altered at all and on key words I can't even find it on Google - well I gave up after 6 pages yet it used to be at the top.
   
   Worse though is that admin used to be all over them correcting grammar or formatting but now I've written to them three times in the last few weeks without a solitary response.
   
   Love to know if this has happened to anyone else recently. I'd be interested to know if admin have all walked out the door and 2) whether Hubpages has been saddled recently with short sub standard multiple articles and received a Google penalty.

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      quotationsposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I've lost about 1/3 of traffic since Thanksgiving and it seems to be trending lower. The drop started the day before Thanksgiving and I attributed it to people being with their families and not being online but traffic has been lowered by the same consistent amount since then. In other words there is hardly any fluctuation, with the stats being almost the same every day.

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      Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I have no doubt the niche sites have picked up Google penalties. I have also wondered out loud if the new hubs are good enough.
      
      I reckon you need to point to some short, substandard hubs, if you want to make a case.
      
      It might be a bit hard on the authors, but all our pages are public entities.

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         greenmindposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Yes the niche sites are not automatically safe. CalorieBee is basically toast as far as I'm concerned, and PateintsLounge is not much better. On the upside, Owlcation and Bellatory are both doing great for me.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 5 years agoin reply to this

      More people are stealing hubs, including people who write for You Tube.  Competition continues to grow, also...and then there are the holidays.  Unless you have a strong topic that is very popular, views won't be great.  Mine are doing OK now but were low for a few weeks.  We can only do what we can do....which is to continue to update, and add.

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         JerryFisherposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Yes I was surprised to see a few days ago that my best hub has been plagiarised five times. I would have thought Google would have picked up the time when the original was published but maybe not therefore they penalise the lot including the original?

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            Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            You can report copied pages to google, here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools … tice?pli=1
            
            You will need to be signed into your Google account.

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               JerryFisherposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               Cool! Thanks Will

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      2. 82

         Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Traffic & earnings down, down, down. I am ill to look at 50% of earnings from the same time last year.  And no end in sight.
         
         Big sites doing renovations are stealing our hubs too.  AKC stole some of my blog content - and while they have thin content, in most instances these sites have huge credibility, which puts my - me first- in the toilet. 
         
         Many big niche sites are making plays that are putting me and my old competition in the toilet.  It is sad to see the internet gobbled up by the big money folks - there is no more level playing field.  So you have a better article with real info people can use? So what. This site has hundreds of useless pages that are well integrated.
         
         HP needs more landing pages that are focused on specific topics per niche site, and more niche sites.  Vetstreet is doing very well.  Home page just shows 4 topics - Wellness, Care, Learn, Train  then it keeps drilling down. More pages leading you to more concentrated topics. It is the interlinking and helping people stumble across more articles of interest. Pet helpful has all these off topic articles.  I came for dogs, but there are fish and cats and exotic animals and training and medical all jammed on one page. Who can navigate that?  Dog people want dog - and break it down for heath, behaviour, training, bettering your joint lives etc...

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            Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Are you sure that you are being fair about Pethelpful?
            
            Front page, with dogs first in the navigation bar:
            
            
            
            And a cosy place just for them, from that link:
            
            https://pethelpful.com/dogs/

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               Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               Yes - see my comment to Eric below.  Magazine style works once you get to a set of topics that are closely related, like how to setup a saltwater tank. But the random topics like behavior, health and grooming randomly strewn across the page does not work for me.  I think it needs more organization at the top layers, then related articles can be displayed in the magazine style.  But maybe my brain is just old school. lol

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                  Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                  Unless you go the commissioning editor route, niches will continue to develop in a haphazard way, taking whatever pages they can get. I can't see an alternative to magazine style.
                  
                  Also, those hierarchy pages probably get very few visits. I would only visit one if I wanted to know which articles were successful. Not that I would steal any, lol. But some might inspire me when I get back to writing.

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            EricDockettposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            So what happens to us fish people? We just get kicked off of PetHelpful?
            
            PetHelpful is more focused than most of the niche sites, and those dang dotdash sites seem to do okay. But what you are saying makes sense. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that Maven would make the investment to break topics out into their own domains.
            
            My PetHelpful traffic is down significantly, as it is with most of my content. It is very frustrating. Luckily I have some content still doing well, though that may fall off after the holidays.
            
            It does seems like the sites have gotten dinged. I think it is easy to guess why, but it's not my company and nobody asked me.

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               Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               I will ask you lol.  What would you recommend?  They have editors on staff that could be making rearrangements of the main pages, instead of editing the existing articles 5 times over.
               
               I went to look at the the fish pages, and I have to say that while the magazine style is very visually appealing, it is not helpful in guiding people to articles that could be of interest. Setting up a saltwater tank is a good page, because there are only 5 or 6 articles on that subject.  Having lists of topics at the top of the main fish page, then leading to magazine style pages on specific topics would be my recommendation.
               
               People tend to use the Internet to find info on specific topics to answer specific questions.  "My dog has cancer; what treatments exist?"  versus "I am getting a new puppy. what will I name him?" When you land on the dogs main page there are  links to grooming pages, behavior or health articles scattered randomly across the page. You have to scroll down to nearly the bottom of that page to stumble across the "behavior" link.  Also, I think lists of articles with a thumbnail image to the left is easier for people to navigate.  They can find what they are looking for and make a mental note to come back and read something else that caught their attention. Magazine style is to random for the ADD in some of us.

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2. 94

   eugbugposted 5 years ago

   I wonder is there any point HubPages doing more marketing to promote the niche sites and create brand awareness? Nobody seems to know about them. It wouldn't improve organic search, but at least the pundits might recognise the names in the SERPs. The social media accounts don't seem to have much activity either, but I presume there aren't enough staff to maintain them.

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      Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I've always been vocal that HP's social media presence is abysmal. I think that right now, it's important to have a solid social media presence so it's problematic to HP's future.

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3. 96

   Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

   Stats are bad. My top performing article used to receive several thousand Google hits per day. It now receives less than 200.
   
   The niche sites are cluttered with articles that don't perform well and the Q&A feature needs to be deleted - it's thin content. HP should communicate with us more on what's going on and how we should move forward. I know that model here is to leave the site open to everyone and catch the quality articles for niche sites but I believe it's harming our reputation with Google and I wish they'd be much, much more astringent on who is even allowed to open an account here.

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      Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      And to add, the Q&A feature should be replaced with public forums. Forums bring traffic. Also, the niche sites need to be niched out MORE. We should have a niche site solely dedicated to women's health like Bustle, Byrdie and Romper which all perform well in SERPs. We should have a niche site that caters solely to pregnancy and baby years like BabyCenter, WhatToExpect and NetMums which again, perform well in SERPs.
      
      This model isn't working anymore, it's too scattered.

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      greenmindposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      + 1

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      TessSchlesingerposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      GDPR Deleted
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         Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Editors could do contests for topics that need content.

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         DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

         I wonder if they add the poorly written articles to the niche sites just to keep the site active? (I think Google needs you to add new content so that your site is not moribund.)
         There are a lot of things I would like to go through and remove in the area in which I am knowledgeable, but even if I were allowed to do such a thing I am not sure if it would help or hinder traffic.

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      BeautyandFashionposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      I have been edited and rewritten three or four times. My moneymaker article has been so rewritten I don't like it at all and some of the information was misleading to the point of being ridiculous. I changed some of the info back after the first edit, but  was told it was better for SEO to leave it alone. I will not! It's false information and so it's misleading.
      
      Said 'edits' have shot my earnings to pieces. I am now making less than 1/3 of what I used to generate. I have been on HP for over 12 yrs, ish. Unfortunately, I'm just about D O N E.  I hate to leave but my family and my income are my priority.
      
      I'm so very disappointed.
      
      Merry Christmas, I wish you all good health and happiness xoxo
      
      Love, Kerry

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         TessSchlesingerposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         GDPR Deleted
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            BeautyandFashionposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Hi Tess, I have always had  pleasant dealings with HP staff otherwise.
            
            Kerry

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4. 94

   eugbugposted 5 years ago

   Apparently there's a new Google search algorithm update which started December 10th. Seems to be one every second week now.

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      Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      And with each one it seems like HubPages and the niches get penalized more. Something's gotta give.

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         hclpdposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Yeah. The downward trend hasn't stopped since the last year. The more I write, the less I earn.

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            hclpdposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            My views per hub are less than one-third of what they were a year ago.

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5. 59

   paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago

   My traffic is nothing to write home about either. But considering my topics vs. the season, it's actually doing relatively ok.

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6. 86

   JerryFisherposted 5 years ago

   I just have an algorithm feeling that good quality articles are getting dragged down by multiple poor quality hubs, mainly written for Amazon links, or low quality SEO links. But Hubpages support staff seem to have completely disappeared to answer this question. A few months ago it only took a day or two to get a friendly helpful reply to a support question. Now, no reply at all. Where are they?

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      Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Making accusations on the basis of a feeling is pretty poor practice. What are staff going to say? Something like, "we feel differently", perhaps. And so it goes on.

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         JerryFisherposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Will have you noticed any slide in stats son your hubs recently?

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7. 93

   Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

   I am surprised the staff is not responding that is not professional and sets a precedence.  What happened to all the editors they hired?

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      JerryFisherposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah well you know Kenna they can't even be reading this on the forum which is a worry.

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         Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Plagiarism alone can sink a page, so it is worth complaining.
         
         I would bookmark the google link, its harder to find than it should be.

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   2. 79

      samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      @Kenna McHugh, there are only about 2 people who actually moderate the forum regularly, so it can sometimes take time to process each thread.
      
      Our moderators get their hands on every article that goes on HubPages. So the truly spammy and "stuffed" articles are flat out rejected. The rest that have no particular home go to HubPages, which exists separately from the niche sites. The niche sites are curated by their designated editor, who either snips out anything harmful or do a quick touch-up. So none of the niche site articles are technically harmful.
      
      The Q&A feature works similarly to an article in that it has its own page and can gain traffic. It produces good results, so it will probably stick around for a while.
      
      Also, we haven't noticed any abnormal traffic drops or anything on HubPages. In fact, we've seen some good numbers recently. Things can fluctuate from time to time. There are so many factors that go into it, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly what is going on with an individual author.

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         paradigmsearchposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         HP, I trust your good faith completely. In the last 10 years, I have watched HP grow from a complete bunch of entrepreneurial amateurs (just like me), to a growing organization of pros. Negatives aside, I will stick with HP as long as so indicated. Consider this post a pep talk; most businesses who deal with the public get slammed with nothing but negatives; I think a positive comment is in order here. I know this venture is go for broke and includes your heart and soul. "All In", as they say. HP's good faith is a main reason this site is still here. There's more I could say, but that's just what I wanted to mention for now.

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            Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            I am willing to chip in for a wing. Maybe topical forums can manage a prayer.

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         DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

         If spammy articles are rejected, why did this make it past?
         https://hubpages.com/animals/Cat-is-very-adorable

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            Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Lol, that is bad.

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            Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            OMG

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            EricDockettposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Maybe it didn't. It has a noindex tag.

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               DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

               It looks like it is featured. Did you see all of those hubbers that stopped to leave a comment?
               It also shows up on his profile page. I know that you can change your page to show non-featured hubs, but am not sure he did so.

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                  samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                  It says "not published"? Weird.

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                     DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

                     I can still see it. The most recent update was Nov. 24 2019 so I would think that the HP team would have seen it then.

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                        samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                        It's not featured, but it looks like the author did choose to have it on his profile.

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            Madeleine Claysposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            The article you mention also contains animal abuse (see below, taken straight from the article.) Sad the editors would overlook that. And yes, it is published--otherwise I wouldn't be able to see it.
            
            "There's a myth that cat has nine lives. Is that true? Although, when I was young, I tried to experiment with that. I throw my kitten from high wall, about 5 meters from the top, he will escape from death."

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               theraggededgeposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               Report (flag) it. I have already and have just done so again. It should be unpublished.

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                  AliciaCposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                  I've just done the same. At the very least, the article should be edited and the part that Madeleine has mentioned should be removed.

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               Madeleine Claysposted 5 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks, theraggededge and AliciaC. I too reported (flagged) it and hope many others will do the same.

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         EricDockettposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         @Samantha - I find it puzzling that you're saying the Team has seen no traffic drops. Quite clearly some of the niche sites aren't performing as they did a year ago. I can see that in my own traffic, and many others have pointed out the same.
         
         There was a time when Paul would come into these forums and talk candidly about traffic ups and downs. I know that's not his job anymore, but I wish someone would do that. I feel like the community is noticing major issues and we're being told there is nothing to see here.

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            samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Like I said, while some individuals are experiencing these ups and downs, in general, things are looking relatively the same. We would let everyone know if there was ever a real issue.

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            Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Right on. My Pethelpful account is off 40K views a month. Remedy Grove is moribund. Glad to here Bellatory is doing well, although my articles over there have never really taken off. That account will reach payout in 30 months lol.

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         TIMETRAVELER2posted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Just so you'll know, I checked my numbers on my main site comparing them to last year's at the same time.  They have almost doubled.

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   3. 88

      Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

      So much of my work has been plagiarized, and I found I rarely got results with the DMCAs. I make about one third of what I did here a year or so ago. It's not even worth it to write anymore, it all gets stolen. Also, the Q&A should have been gone long ago. People don't bother to read the articles and ask questions that were answered in them.

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         theraggededgeposted 5 years agoin reply to this

         Hi Jean, you can turn off the Q&A on your articles.
         
         Also, if you send DMCAs directly to the webhost, it works nearly every time. The only ones I have trouble with are Russian and Chinese - and it's easy enough to have those taken out of Google results so they don't impact traffic.

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            Jean Bakulaposted 5 years agoin reply to this

            Hi Bev,
            I do turn off the Q&A when I get an outrageous amount of questions which amount to free readings, or are answered in the article.
            
            I guess I just feel overwhelmed about the plagiarism. Most of the astrology articles in series I wrote have been stolen. As soon as I get one taken down, it's up somewhere else.
            
            It may be a project for the new year. Have a great Christmas .

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8. 59

   paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago

   Considering the season and my topic categories, I've put all my traumatization on hold.

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9. 95

   daydreamsposted 5 years ago

   My views are up - are you sure it is not just something like the time of year? I always get better views during holiday season, but imagine other people have articles with things that people google less during Christmas time.

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    Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

    @samanthacubbison Thank you for clarifying how the workload is handled. It helps to understand.

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       samanthacubbisonposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Also, in regards to page formatting, I totally get where everyone is coming from. But just for a little insight . . . It’s difficult to change the categories on niche sites because they are slugs that have built a reputation with Google over the years. We can change sub-categories, but reorganizing everything and adding new branches is time-consuming for the engineering staff and can potentially affect traffic negatively.
       
       Right now, the team is working really hard with the Maven, so there is little bandwidth available. But hopefully, once things have settled down, we'll have more time to work on such projects.

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11. 71

    Marie Flintposted 5 years ago

    I usually don't bother with stats and whatnot. Payout for me is about every 1.75 years, so you know I'm SEO and earning brain-dead!
    
    In reading all the comments to date, the majority sounded negative. Some suggestions seemed valid, however, and may be good material for HubPages Team to consider. I like the sound of magazine-type layout. Could HP expand into a monthly magazine? I'd be interested. Maybe I could even come up with a few articles for it.
    
    Sometimes I actually feel sorry for the Team. There is SO much to cover when trying to encourage writers, yet maintain a high standard. I had even thought about moving to San Francisco to help them! (I used to live in the city during the late 70s.)
    
    Overall, I've been with the site too long to just ditch it. I'm grateful for having a free-flowing creative outlet, and I'm grateful for the few little earnings I do get. I do think, however, some kind of writing test should be given to new comers (just my two-cents' worth).
    
    Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

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    ReViewMeMediaposted 5 years ago

    My traffic's been pretty good in my anime and manga niche since I don't really review too many mainstream anime titles, but I've had to file two DMCAs to GoodReads.com as some 56 -year-old keeps stealing my Hellsing manga reviews, I've had 3 articles stolen, the other one is an anime review for the Netflix exclusive Violet Evergarden.  My traffic goes up and down but I expect that.

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    Weber Collinsposted 5 years ago

    There was a major Google update in November and another one in December.  The ranking drops were not due to penalties but overall drops in ranking.

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       DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Is that just some sort of semantics that Google uses to make us feel better? If I have lost thousands of page views a day it sure feels like a penalty to me.

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    Solarasposted 5 years ago

    I am watching my pageviews take another dive, while the earnings remain stuck without updates since Sunday.  Earning for the period showing in my earnings view are exactly 50% of what they were for the same time period one year ago. Feeling as though things are falling apart, while HP takes a backseat to Maven.

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       DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       In the meantime, we are told "The ranking drops were not due to penalties". Yeah, right.

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    Sherry Hewinsposted 5 years ago

    It's not a very Merry Christmas season on HP. My Amazon sales are pretty good relative to my traffic, but that's not good at all. Heavy sigh.

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    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    I understand everyone’s frustrations however, and maybe this is just my account, I’m still earning more traffic and money than I was before the Maven acquisition. True, things were much better right after the acquisition and I’ve never recovered from the Medic Fix update BUT for me at least, my stats are better than before Maven.

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    emgeposted 5 years ago

    I have been on hub pages for a few years. My take on this is that articles which are inordinately long rarely sustain interest.  With time at a premium,  persons will like to read shorter and informative articles.  You may like to look at article viewership this way.

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       EricDockettposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       It is understandable why you might think this, but it simply isn't correct. Longer articles rank better, get more social shares, and earn more links. This is proven in studies time after time.

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    JerryFisherposted 5 years ago

    Have to say that as an experiment I added about 1500 quality words to my top hub that had fallen off a cliff and it's gone from being ranked number one a few months ago to completely disappearing ( well it would have been somewhere but gave up after page 8) and is now back to page two and hopefully climbing. So, I might have to take back my thoughts on whether HP was being penalised for poor quality hubs. Maybe its my fault for lazily sitting on my hands thinking that hub would always remain in its position and not editing it now and again to keep Google happy. Sorry Hubpages I take back everything !

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       DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       You are using a VERY tiny database (1 article) to make that assumption. How about the updating of an entire niche site? (HP did this to Pethelpful recently.) Does the traffic go up? I do not think so. We certainly did not hear about improvements based on that large experiment.

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          EricDockettposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          When HP refreshed HowTheyPlay my traffic improved almost instantly. I didn't see the same improvement with PetHelpful. In fact, over the past few months my traffic has dropped.
          
          I usually see a slight drop right before Christmas and then a surge afterward (presumably people get fish tanks for Christmas? Who knows?) But this drop is much worse than I expected and started much sooner.
          
          While PetHelpful may not technically be under a penalty it is clear something isn't right.

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             Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

             In looking at the articles that are beating mine, and have pushed mine from number 1 to 3-4, I see a few commonalities.
             
             1) They are loaded with embedded Gifs related to the content. (from Giphy)
             2) They are very long
             3) They are newer (not old updated articles)
             4) They are list oriented and take the Featured Snippets spot
             
             Things that we can expect to be more interesting to google in the future
             
             1) Alt Image Text (we still don't have that option and it is even more important for 2020.
             
             2) Video snippets
             
             3) Voice searches will be increasing and 40% of results come from feature snippets.
             
             How to get Featured Snippets:
             Add “Snippet Bait” to Your Page
             
             “Snippet Bait” is a 40-60 word block of content specifically designed to rank in the Featured Snippet spot.
             
             Why 40-60 words?
             
             Well, SEMrush analyzed nearly 7 million Featured Snippets. And they found that the most Featured Snippets are 40-60 words long.
             
             If you want to rank for List Snippets…
             
             Use H2 or H3 subheaders for every item on your list.Google will pull those subheaders from your content… and include them in the Featured Snippet
             
             If you want to rank in Table Snippets…
             
             You need to create a table that Google can easily pull data from.
             
             
             For example, the content from this Table Snippet…
             
             
             
             
             Re-Optimize Old Content for Search Intent
             Search Intent optimization isn’t just for new content.
             
             You can tweak your older stuff to make it a better Search Intent fit.
             In a how to people want a list of steps.
             
             So he transformed his post into a step-by-step guide that was easy to follow. How to list are apparently what people are wanting, less so than the story of how you did it.
             
             Read more here https://backlinko.com/seo-this-year

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                DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

                Thanks for that link. I really found interesting that "title tags that contained “Power Words” reduced clicks by 14%" I think I have a lot of editing to do. I hope to get some of those bottom of the barrel hubs up there.
                (

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                DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

                Thanks for that link. I really found interesting that "title tags that contained “Power Words” reduced clicks by 14%" I think I have a lot of editing to do. I hope to get some of those bottom of the barrel hubs up there.
                (I had done this in the past year by adding power words to the title. Now I kind of know why it did not work.)

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          Shesabutterflyposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          My pethelpful articles all lost traffic after the site over haul and never recovered. My top pethelpful article now gets less than half of what it did before the edits/updates.
          
          They are doing Delishably right now and I'm hoping it has better results. My top performing article is on Delishably and has been doing extremely well the past week, but it's been successful since I published it. It's a seasonal article and should have seen an uptick starting in Oct and spiking around Thanksgiving. However, it had a very slow start this year so only time will tell if the updates will affect it or not. This particular one has not been edited yet, and I'm hoping it doesn't as I haven't had much success with HP edits (almost all my articles sustain loss and never come back).
          
          The Delishably articles that have been updated so far I have notice little to no change in traffic so far, but it's still too early to tell what will happen as they are still updating.
          
          This year's traffic for me is less than this time last year, but I've noticed a lot more fluctuation in traffic throughout this whole year than in year's past. I had some really great months, and others where I thought I wouldn't even make payout.

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             DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

             I wonder if all of Pethelpful went down? After reading that article that Solaras linked to I went in and looked at some of my rankings on Google. I noticed that my articles that were previously number one had fallen since someone had read them, and then, without copying word for word, copied them. (They also added other dog breeds. Instead of having a good article on the best, Google seems to be favoring lists like "16 hypoallergenic dog breeds" or even "55 hypoallergenic dog breeds".
             Do you think the same thing happened with your Pethelpful articles on veggies? There is always so much going on here, and in this case I am wondering if the changes were due to the update or to factors in which HP was not involved?

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                Shesabutterflyposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                I think that is also part of the problem. Especially with topics like pets. It's easy to rewrite without copying, and out rank the article someone used to write/"copy" their own.
                
                I haven't really checked Google since my article was edited. However, I rarely use Google for most of my searches, because it seems like with every algo update their results get worse.
                
                I did a quick search just now on my phone and my article would probably be page 3 or 4 on a laptop. It gets beat out by identical articles and others that do not completely answer what I asked/searched for. Either about fruits & veggies, or herbs and all human foods.
                
                It's my guess that it's because those sites are either very well known (think AKC & WebMD), or they are dog specific sites. I also noticed the top ranking articles have little to no pictures. I don't know if it matters, but it seems to in this case. Maybe people want quick lists with no picture interruptions?
                
                All the articles I found were either "older"/last updated later than mine was, or had a similar date as mine. There was nothing from within the last 4 months for example, so date doesn't seem to matter in this particular topic/article.

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                   DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

                   What used to be my top earning article was "paraphrased" by some celebrity web site. Not AKC, not WebMD, etc.
                   At least wikihow gave me a link when they paraphrased that article. The writer on this one has a link to all her other articles--Angelina, Brad, Ryan Gosling, etc. Google is making even less sense than it used to.

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                      TessSchlesingerposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                      GDPR Deleted
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                         DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

                         That article that Solaras linked to mentions something about that. All of the new changes at Google (more ads on the first page, the featured snippet, the "searchers also ask", etc) means that a number one spot has lower click rate than it used to.
                         There is not much more we can do than reach number one. What alternatives do we have from there?

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                         Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

                         Then I would suspect people have changed the search criteria in some way.  So you still rank for certain keywords, but more people are searching for a variation on those keywords. See what Google Suggest offers at the bottom of the SERP page.  You may need to optimize for one of those search terms.

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    Kierstin Gunsbergposted 5 years ago

    I actually feel disenchanted with Google. I'm sure HP could make updates but then again, it's hard to keep up with algorithm updates! This past year, every single time I search Google for an answer I don't get what I'm looking for. I have to go back pages to find exactly what I want, or rephrase my search to be extremely specific. Makes me think we should retitle our articles in a very specific way.

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    Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

    I found this worth a look and will read later, after the holidays. Interestingly, just yesterday, an HP editor edited one of my listing articles by taking the items from the list and listing them all out one through ten within my intro capsule after the intro paragraph. The article views increase substantially within one day. I plan to do more of the same on my other articles with lists.

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       Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Awesome - I was going to experiment with my blog before messing around here, with a similar scheme.  I will report my results back.  Times are changing always.  Hopefully we can help each other with some new good practices.

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    Solarasposted 5 years ago

    BTW someone - Relache or Writer Fox had suggested using the "caption" on images in exchange for the lack of an alt image text.  If you can put a caption there that helps the keyword intention of the article please do it. 
    
    Keyword intention means what the ultimate goal of the searcher is. ie. is this an "information request," "how to request" or "Where to Buy Request" tune you article to that query and not just the keyword.
    
    For many here that will require a just few updates to make a how to article more obvious to Google - a list of the steps preceding what is coming in the rest of the  article may get the featured snippet box.  Use H2 or H3 tags on that "list of steps up coming" to snatch the Featured Snippets box. 
    
    Video snippets that Google can quickly grab are helpful too.  And somehow Gifs are appealing - short and sweet??? to google as well.  I would expect that Google fashion to be a short lived favorite for google, and youtube videos to ultimately win the day.  Google owns Youtube.

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       Will Apseposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Good luck with the on-page approach and let us know how it goes.

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       DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       I have been using the captions as the alt image text for years, as per Writer Fox´s recommendations, In my opinion, based on the results of image search, it works just fine. For the top image on each article, I usually place a caption based on the keywords used in the article.
       For example, if the article is about "The 7 Best Dog Breeds for Someone Who Works All Day" the top caption is The seven best dog breeds for someone who works all day. with a MFP image (sometimes).

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          eugbugposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          Sometimes Google uses the word "source" from the field name of an image as one of the items in a featured snippet. Maybe HubPages could sort this somehow.

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          Solarasposted 5 years agoin reply to this

          Thanks for that and shout out to Writer Fox.  I was not sure how Google, HP Staff and readers would respond to caption text that described the article and not necessarily the photo.

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             DrMark1961posted 5 years agoin reply to this

             I have been doing this for years and none of them seem to mind.

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    hclpdposted 5 years ago

    Traffic seems to have taken another tumble. Maybe it's just because of the holidays. Anyone else noticing the same trend?

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       CYong74posted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Sigh. *raise a weary hand*

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    paradigmsearchposted 5 years ago

    Christmas Chaos Time. I'm surprised my article topics get any traffic at all this time of year. In fact, I even find it kind of amazing.
    
    2020 less than 10 days away.

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    SANJAY LAKHANPALposted 5 years ago

    Yes, my views are also going down.

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    Kenna McHughposted 5 years ago

    That is fantastic!

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    hclpdposted 5 years ago

    How can I contact a Hubpages editor? Can anyone help me out?

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       JerryFisherposted 5 years agoin reply to this

       Good luck. I think they all went on holiday early December.

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