What is going on at Hubpages Have they had a google penalty applied?
I really, really like hubpages and have been using them for several years, but there is something fishy going on over there. I cannot claim to be a “google guru,” who can predict what google do or do not do to their search algorithm, but….. And this is a big but. For the first time in two years, I am seeing a steady drop in traffic to my hubpages.
And it is a steady drop in certain niches only which are all related. In fact, it is so steady I decided to check some of my pages that were performing reasonably well and discovered that they have been removed from the google index completely. And these unfortunately were one of the backbones of the pages I used in making money with hubpages.
I must admit – I have had this happen to webpages in the past, but it was usually some short time after initial publishing, and after the initial surge of traffic when google “discovers” new content. A few weeks spent building links usually fixed the problem, and I found that the longer they were de-indexed, the stronger they were when they came back.
This time it is different. These are well-established, older pages (some as much as two years old) that have well established incoming links and were generating traffic. No more – slowly any pages related to certain high-paying real estate related subjects have all been de-indexed and I suspect that hubpages has had a google penalty applied to these niche subjects.
I think it has something to do with hubpages’ recent aggressive drive to create lots and lots of new content with the 100 hubs in 30 days hubchallenge – which I took part in and initially thought was a good idea. The level of crap being dumped into certain subjects and the sheer amount of new pages in the “tempting” niches has apparently triggered something with big G.
Which – as far as I am concerned, negates some of the advantages that hubpages has over my own sites. In the past I found it financially beneficial to use hubpages for the relative ease with which pages were found and ranked compared to a stand-alone site. Frankly – it was worth giving up 60% of the income for that ease. And – yes, I know hubpages only takes 40% - but they actually take 60%.
Now – I am not so sure if they are an advantageous site to use in certain niches. Any one else experiencing the same issues?
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Comments on What is going on at Hubpages Have they had a google penalty applied?
I’ve not been tracking it as carefully as you do, but I think I have noticed something of the sort in recent weeks. I’ve never been sold on these hub-challenges for the reason you mention – they can degenerate into garbage generators.
.-= Paraglider´s last blog ..First, dig the hole… =-.
Yes – I manage to do 51 hubs in the first challenge – and pissed off all my regular readers in the process. But now – all I see is crap – and I seen a drop in traffic to certain subjects and the hubs in question have been penalized. First time in 2 years my traffic has consistently gone down instead of up. Makes you wonder.
I love Hubpages and use it for something other than revenue. So any money made is incidental but welcome. I don’t make much money at all from my Hubpages, but I have noticed that my clicks have gone from 10-30 cents a click to 1 cent a click. Happened in the last month or two. Is it just me?
Your problem sounds a little like something else. It is very plain that G loves the very old and the very new. Given two hubs with equal keyword density, quality outgoing links, unique pictures and videos, I would expect G to favor a week old hub over a six month old hub.
.-= Dark Alice´s last blog ..Ridiculously Huge Version of Alice in Wonderland Banner Poster =-.
Hi Mark,
My traffic is constantly increasing in hubpages. I am not feeling that Google has penalized the hubpages.
It may be that you were getting tons of traffic when there were low competition.
Thousands of hubbers sign up hubpages and create a lot of contents that may be lowering traffic to established hubbers like you.
Just a guess.
Thanks,
Jyoti Kothari
My pleasure Jyoti,
My traffic is constantly increasing also – and I think you might be surprised at how much traffic that is – but -0 I am losing SE traffic to certain high paying financial subjects.
Shows SEO is an uncertain business. Spending 100′s of hours in optimizing for one factor today can show a waste of time tomorrow – if Googles alters the algorithm. I guess it shows once again that the best you can do it to build your SEO on many different factors, so that if one is altered in the algorithm it does not all fall together. However, in practice it can be difficult to do so.
Hey Mark,
Just wondering if the above is still relevant,I notice its from before Christmas. I had a surge in traffic and earnings on hubpages around and just after Christmas and Im now seeing a drop in both.Not sure if it was the Christmas shopping flurry or not. Any ideas? Also any suggestions about where to place google adsense ads on wordpress blogs. Can you point me to any good articles,books or websites?
Thanks
kev8
Hey Kev,
Still relevant. Some of the financial subjects I write on have lot traffic. I don’t know if a penalty was applied – and I am pretty sure if I ask I will not get an answer LOL
The other thing – that really depends on a number of factors – content, blog design and subject amongst other things. You could try yield build. That is working pretty well for me although a lot of ads. http://yieldbuild.com/