Although banned from the official forums, I still login into them each day and read the very few (1 or 2) "fresh" threads that raise pompons to Squidoo's new policies. So from what I could read it seems that traffic's rising and that everything's gonna be alright.
Let me doubt of it. Don't try to fool me, please. Don't fool other old timers, they're not fools and most don't believe in your numbers unless they write in a niche that has a low competition rate and a niche that requires specific skills - I often refer to arts... but indeed, not everybody can write in this niche and it definitely needs expertise and high skills.
As you know, my favorite niches are holidays. More particularly Halloween, Christmas, Valentines, Easter and the like.
So, I have a portfolio filled with holiday related lenses and, although I deleted some of them, I'm still dealing with 23 Halloween lenses (deleted 3 or 4 of my portfolio, though).
Here are a few examples of the numbers I took note through the years.
Halloween Homemade Scary Decorations
July 2010: 712
July 2011: 745
July 2012: 943
July 2013: 286
For August this year numbers are even more dramatically lower!
August 2010: 2,500
August 2011: 2,700
August 2012: 3,000
August 2013 to this day: 386
For July traffic for this lens - and most others - was 1/3 of the previous year traffic. However for August, traffic is 1/10th of previous year traffic.
Next lens statistics : Grease Halloween Costumes
July 2010: 179
July 2011: 425
July 2012: 772
July 2013: 304
For August this year numbers are even more dramatically lower!
August 2010: 237
August 2011: 759
August 2012: 1,192
August 2013 to this day: 233
Traffic is 1/5 of what it was last year at the same time.
Next lens statistics : Homemade Halloween Window Decorations
July 2010 : lens didn't exist yet
July 2011: 111
July 2012: 141
July 2013: 304
For August this year numbers are even more dramatically lower!
August 2010: 126
August 2011: 457
August 2012: 433
August 2013 to this day: 94
Though while making the additon of daily visits on the stat page I get a total of 144 for July... Stats glitch in addition to all the current bugs ?
Next lens statistics : Addams Family Halloween Costumes
July 2010: 534
July 2011: 580
July 2012: 466
July 2013: 115
For August this year numbers are even more dramatically lower!
August 2010: 1,199
August 2011: 1,140
August 2012: 912
August 2013 to this day: 142
Traffic rate between August 2012 and 2013 : 1/6th of last year traffic.
Next lens statistics : Halloween Potluck Party Ideas
July 2010: 169
July 2011: 336
July 2012: 231
July 2013: 42
For August this year numbers are even more dramatically lower!
August 2010: 484
August 2011: 643
August 2012: 573
August 2013 to this day: 39
Traffic is, for this lens, 1/14th of what it looked like last year at the same time. What a mess !
This is a real pity because my best performing Halloween lens has always be the homemade scary one and then the potluck party lens. The Potluck party lens isn't even going to reach the shortest traffic rate of its very firs year of existence which was 123 visits for the first month.
At this rate, I expect September traffic to not exceed 700 visits for the best performing one and October traffic not higher than 1,000.I've never see such low numbers. All in all, Squidoo's still sinking.
And please stop taking me for a fool: no, Google's updates and filters and whatever you want, did NOT impact my personal sites traffic which are also focusing on holidays.
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| Quantcast stats on Aug 22nd... |
If Google didn't touch my sites, I don't see why they would have touched Squidoo. I have less ads on my sites, that's a fact... so I earn them less money. But I know one thing: I NEVER touched my sites since the new policies, Panda and Penguin updates. I left them as they were... they aren't spam sites, they play by the rules and I didn't feel like doing something wrong, so didn't touch them at all.
Naturally I didn't change my site's orientation either: one Halloween site remains a Halloween site...
Posted by Squidoo Angel Prosperity66
Valuable information to us all. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteSadly my experience is similar. Traffic stats are terrible. So glad your other sites are doing well. It only goes to show how important it is not to rely on one site, especially when someone else owns it and you are only one of many contributors.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, having control over your work and what it becomes is most important.
ReplyDelete