Hubpages getting the nerf stick?

[Froggy]

Wondering if this is just me or something others are noticing too

I'm having a harder time getting them indexed (not sending backlinks), and established ones seem to be dipping both in SERPs and traffic

[Silver Rose]

I've noticed this on some topics, but others are doing OK.

I think it's down to saturation of domain for some topics. To check saturation, do the following check for your keyword in Google:

site:hubpages.com "keyword"

Insert your keyword within the quotes.

For instance, if you do the above search for credit cards, Google.com returns a stonking 11,400 results! But they would never feature more than two hubs on a single page in the SERPS, and those two are the ones with the most backlinks. So all those people who wrote umpteen variations of credit card hubs wasted their time.

Always check for saturation before you write a hub. The same thing goes when setting up Squidoo lenses.

[Broke Affiliate]

What Silver Rose said. Saturation makes it way harder for your pages to place.

[Froggy]

No saturation in my fields, got niches all to myself

If anyone else is noticing this too you might want to try making a new account for every 20-30ish hubs. The extra links to them in your profiles seem to help a lot

[BenK]

Yes, I think hubpages has gotten a nerf. I can't say for sure, but reports + my own reduction in traffic (i've lost 20%) leads me to believe this is the case. I know people pumping out hundreds of hubs and not getting the type of traffic we were a few months ago. It seems that if you have hubs 2-4 months old, they still perform, just with less traffic. But new hubs don't get the ranking + traffic they did. It could be saturation, which is probably one factor, but google may have decreased the easy rankings you got before.

Infobarrel seems to be going up. IB outrank hubpages as well. The CTR is lower though, so you have to factor that in.

[mei]

Thanks for your assessment of this issue, Ben; I had been wondering if it was only me who was experiencing this. Froggy, I noticed this myself, as well. I entered the MMO field only two months ago, so I am not sure how much of it is related to my own lack of knowledge or inexperience, but I noticed that even with uncompetitive keywords, I have been having an incredibly difficult time ranking with HubPages since beginning the 100 hub in 30 days project in August. With InfoBarrel on the other hand, I have very little problem getting my article on the first page.

The CTR definitely seems to be lower with InfoBarrel than HubPages, but I'm hoping that the higher SERP ranking can help somehow equalize that.

[Derrick]

All but one of my hubs have fallen in traffic, even ones I have built backlinks to.

Might just be a blip in the overall picture combined with the US holiday, we will see.

[ron]

it's same for everyone. yeah, the same thing for everybody. i don't want to say this... but... it seems like google penalized hubpages. i think it's fine if that challenge doesn't involve big name in the seo field out there. but when challenge like that involve someone who blacklisted in the google list like 'court' and one of big staff in hubpages supporting that, it turns to disaster. that's why i don't use hubpages since 2 months ago, actually when i know it involves court. you may disagree with me.. it's fine. it's just my opinion. court knows how to market his keyword academy program by targeting people on hubpages because they don't make money but you need to be ready to accept that we will lose hubpages. ok people, let's hunt down another web 2.0. this circle will never ends.

p/s: now i lose one of great tools to make money. well, thanks to court and ryan hupfer.

[joshuamd3]

Can't add much here. Hubpages $ and traffic down as of recently and I have plenty of Hubs. But, the last few days. (week or so) have shown previous traffic levels...

IB seems hit or miss. Some rank higher, some much lower... even with backlinks. Plus, CTR is about 60% of what Hubpages is... They really, really, really need to work on that. Money out the window...

[ron]

i wonder how others doing in IB as I don't use it yet.. BTW, regarding to HP case, it really not rank able like before even my new hubs not indexed after one week. seriously guys! the hell! that's what HP got when made a relationship with one of big sharks in SEO world and do it clearly in the eyes of big G. LOL.. earning for old hubs on average is normal but traffic seriously decrease. there is a pattern about this. my 15 hubs that created 3 days ago to sniff a niche which considered not competitive is not indexed yet. LOL..

nothing to be worried guys. sniping is better than creating content 4 other people properties. you just need to wait a little. i'm pretty sure if you do things right, ur site will make money at least 1 month after deployed. it's from my own xperience.