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Serious Problem with Happiness Engineer Response

  1. indytony
    Member

    This is indytony from "A Way With Words" http://www.writingforfoodinindy.wordpress.com

    I am not at all happy with one of your happiness engineers. I raised a serious concern about why my views have plummeted for no reason. He basically said "stats fluctuate, you may be using too many tags" and sent links to generic information that is useless. He added a link should I want to contact him that I clicked and it was the Google homepage. Then he closed the discussion. (You may find this information at http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/why-have-my-views-and-visits-been-drastically-reduced-the-past-two-days?replies=17#post-1140772

    I have 108 followers. I have been steadily rising in views and visits to over 100 each day. I went from 127 on Monday to 37 on Tuesday and 19 on Wednesday.

    Last night, I sent messages to over 60 of my followers and informed them that I was having problems with WordPress and encouraged them to keep visiting my blog. Still, my stats showed only 37 visits for the day. Something is not right at WordPress.

    I am relying heavily on my blog in my current career (as a freelance writer). I've also contracted to contribute to a Mediation practice as they develop their blog. I intend for blogging to be a key part of my career over the next 20 years and I need a dependable host. Please resolve this matter speedily. At the very least, give me a live person I can deal with who does not provide generic answers, hide behind a false link, then close discussion.

    Thank you, Tony Roberts

  2. notawoodpecker
    Member

    Simple facts of life:

    >Stats fluctuate, are NEVER 100% accurate and should never be relied upon. They are nothing more that a rough guideline.

    >Businesses should be on a self-hosted platform where they have more control over things like appearance and search engine insertion.

    >When you're on a free hosted platform, you get what you get.

    >When you're on somebody else's platform, free or upgraded, you're at their mercy and you comply with their policies. If you don't like it, see point two above.

  3. indytony
    Member

    Dear Mr./Ms. notawoodpecker,

    1) I understand you are trying to teach me the facts of life, according to web hosting.

    2) I realize one of the basic principles in all life is, "you (generally) get what you pay for," and "generally, you don't get much if you don't pay."

    3) As I launch my career, I may do well to follow your point #2 and get a self-hosted platform.

    Still,

    I contend that if some company promotes a service and even calls its representatives "Happiness Engineers", I have the right to be happy with the service or get a respectful resolution if I'm not.

    Thanks for responding.

  4. indytony
    Member

    By the way, an update ....

    As of 8:17 p.m., my blog -

    "A Way With Words" http://www.writingforfoodinindy.wordpress.com

    which has 109 followers, and has been lately averaging almost 100 views/day has a grand total of 19 views - 11 of which are from Greece.

    Explain that.

    Looking for happiness,
    Tony Roberts

  5. shoreacres
    Member

    Those Greeks always were fond of Aristotle....

  6. schaefernation
    Member

    I am not a happiness engineer, nor an I a techie....but I would like to try and help you with this.
    I am new to WordPress and also aspire to be a freelancer.
    May I ask how long you have been blogging here?
    My numbers fluctuate hugely as well, but if I really want to dig into what is going on - there are always reasons. For example, I had to refresh my twitter and Facebook links.
    Personally my opinion (which is also free so may be worth nothing but here it is anyway) is to keep writing, sharing and working as you do. Track your stats for a few weeks and if you still think there is something wrong try again.
    I agree that the happiness engineer might not have done due diligence in this case, and you are not happy or even satisfied with the information provided.
    Hope you feel a bit better than someone on here is willing to listen - sorry I am not able to actually help more. Maybe one day!
    For now, good luck and please share any updates you get from the happiness team at WordPress.

  7. indytony
    Member

    Dear schaefernation -

    I appreciate you taking time to respond.

    I started "A Way With Words" in early December. After taking about 10 days to set it up and become active, I have published 1-4 posts daily and have seen growth each week. The top growth week was the first week I started posting daily (in December) which was 1,500+%. From then on, growth has ranged from 1-22% weekly. No decrease - until the last 4 days.

    I have not seen fluctuation, largely because I am aggressive when it comes to recruiting and maintaining readers. After I post, I do a search for posts on the same topic. I spend 2-4 hours each day reading other posts and commenting on them. Whenever someone comments on my posts, I respond with gratitude. When someone signs up to "follow" me, I go to their site and write a note of thanks and "follow" them.

    As my WordPress followers have increased to 108 (and this doesn't include my 120+ Twitter and Facebook friends), I still make the time to read nearly every post they publish in my reader and comment on many of them. As I say, there has been no fluctuation in stats on my blog from the time I became active (around December 15) until Tuesday of this week (January 28).

    On Tuesday (1 day), I had 127 views. From Tuesday - Friday (4 days), I have had 117 views - total.

    As I say, I have not seen any fluctuation in my stats prior to this in large part because I am diligent to promote my blog. Last night, for instance, when I saw there was a problem with my stats, I contacted over half my followers (60+) and asked them to bear with me as I resolved this issue with WordPress and to keep visiting. I know many of them have. Still, my stats are drastically down.

    Something is amiss.

    Thank you again for writing in.

    Respectfully,
    Tony Roberts

  8. ireneses
    Member

    Dear indytony,

    I am having the same problems as you (for a blog writen in spanish). Contrary to a trend of more than 2 years, my vistis (which were quite higher than yours lately) has been droping to unthinkable levels in the last few days without any apparent reason.

    It is not that I care to much about visits, but still...
    I wonder if this is just a two blogs (yours and mine) phenomenon or maybe it is more general.

    I have written a post in my blog about this: http://ireneses.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/metablogging-problemas-con-la-pagina-de-estadisticas-de-wordpress-a-finales-de-enero-2013/

    best regards.

  9. justpi
    Member

    Tony,
    a) You don't always get the best replies or the best attitude from the so-called Happiness Engineers. For a recent example, see this particular H.E. fail twice then close the thread instead of apologizing:
    http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/external-links-in-navigation?replies=7
    Sometimes closing a thread is justified (for instance when a member posts the same question twice) but sometimes they do it because they aren't willing to continue a conversation or admit they're wrong.
    b) But stats do fluctuate - and the less the data the less they signify or the more misleading they can be. A drop in views for just two or three days doesn't mean anything. Some visitors may visit a new blog out of curiosity then lose interest; your followers aren't obliged to read each new post of yours the day you publish it; very few of them might be willing or able to "spend 2-4 hours each day reading other posts" like you do; you post a lot so you may have overwhelmed them; you may get more views at first (as first-time visitors might click to read more posts) then level to more reasonable numbers (as returning visitors will no longer do this).
    c) All this doesn't exclude the possibility of a problem: it only means you don't know yet, and you won't have a realistic picture before months have passed. One thing I can say is that my average for December was 1800 views per day, but on your 'problem' Tuesday and Wednesday I had 2273 and 2248 views respectively, so there's nothing wrong with WP in general.
    d) Your 11 views from Greece were due to me: I'm in Greece, I'm one of the most experienced volunteers here, and I made several clicks yesterday examining your blog (to see what and how often you post, when you started the blog, and whether you've set your feed to display full posts or summaries).

  10. notawoodpecker
    Member

    Way too many words in the last few posts for me to read, but in scanning, I saw some bits about reduced hits.

    There have been several threads about that. Apparently one or more search engines have changed their formulas and sites that used to get hits on images no longer do, or not as often.

    Some people are upset about it, going on rants, etc.

    Other shrug it off and deal with it.

    Either way, they realize it is not a WordPress issue.

  11. fgherbert
    Member

    Hurray, for the helpful members, for the volunteers, for the Happiness Engineers, for the staff, all who are just human but comprise the most user-friendly support system! Hurray!!

  12. ireneses
    Member

    Thanks, Notawoodpecker. Yours was a very informative comment. Indeed the drop has nothing to do with WordPress statistics page but all with google images recent changes, whose implications are still to be seen.

    For those interested in more information I suggest this link:

    http://www.webpronews.com/image-search-changes-google-said-would-be-good-for-webmasters-might-be-hurting-some-sites-2013-01

    One comment from this lined post:

    "How can it be good for webmasters? I do not need my domain name to be displayed on images search section of google.. I need that someone finds an image then because i show him/her this image, he/she comes to my website, then i can get profits. I do not want that i do the job and google gets the money thing.

    Then google should also have a section search-for-content, he should show everything on our websites, at the bottom he should give a link to our websites, is that also okey for you?

    You write all stuff, google shows every letter in it to the users, then do you think that the visitor will come to your website? Forget about it…"

    B.r.

  13. timethief
    Member

    Re: Google image search update
    We are discussing this here too. http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2013/02/01/google-image-search-redesign-raises-ire/ Not every site experienced a traffic drop, some experienced and i9ncrease. Also the Panda and Penguin updates and the pagerank updates may also be factors.

    Note that all search engine issues are between bloggers and the search engines. http://en.support.wordpress.com/search-engines/

  14. timethief
    Member

    edit = an increase

  15. ireneses
    Member

    The situation is becoming really weird in my site.

    Almost a year ago I used a Superman picture in a post which did not generate many visits until this year, when I do not know how, since the begining of january 2013, my blog appeared as first option when you googled the word "Superman", both in general text searchng engine (as one of the four images) and in images searching, spanish edition.

    Even If I could detect this from almost the first day I must admit that I was very happy with visits increase (in any case nothing really spectacular as one may expect with this word). But yesterday I commented openly in my blog about this, and now when you google "Superman" my blog does not appear anymore.

    Geez ! This google algorithm has became really smart after this new change...

    P.s. Timethief: I have read the links you suggest. Very interesting.
    Thanks.

  16. indytony
    Member

    Well, just as unexpectedly as a problem developed (and lasted 4 days), it now seems to be resolved. The past 2 days, I am back to my typically number of views - around 100. I wouldn't mind having an explanation for what happened, but in terms of a resolution, I am not presently in need of assistance. As far as I'm concerned, this thread can be closed.

  17. justpi
    Member

    The problem, Tony, is that you consider this a problem. Check the graphs here to see how your stats fluctuate all the time:
    https://www.quantcast.com/writingforfoodinindy.wordpress.com

  18. apetcher
    Member

    Well, it seems to me that changes at Google are the reason for these sudden changes. My stats have bombed. If you search Google images there is a change to the way they are displayed which gives no incentive to go to the generating page. Very annoying but I suspect nothing to do with WP!

  19. shredboston
    Member

    Agreed with the counter problems. Something's gone very funky with wordpress stats. I tried to stay positive and keep updating as my site per usual.

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