Understanding if your Site Has Been Impacted by Google Panda or a Google Penalty
Examples of traffic patterns
My Guess on Randy Godwin
While Randy's content now resembles Panda, a penalty or a loss of incoming link value. I don't think it's Panda because it happened a few days before the most recent 2.4 release.
Our subdomain change could impact the link value sent to Randy, so that's a possibility, but his pages should still outrank scrapers. There were multiple scrapers outranking a number of his pages.
This leaves two options. One, Google could have a bug related to 301's and is getting confused on the original source of the content and it's worth reporting to Google with the re-inclusion request. The other option is some type of penalty has been applied to Randy.
I doubt it's an algorithmic change because of the scrapers outranking him.
My recommendation is to add his subdomain to his Google Webmastertools account, send in a re-inclusion request detailing what happened to his traffic including links and images of the scraper pages outranking him. I'd also post the details in the official Google forums. Laslty, I'd personally tweet it to Matt Cutts (@mattcutts).
I'd then give the changes we made a week to settle in (we should have 100% of Hubs on Subdomains tomorrow).
*Randy, let us know what you do.
Dramatic Changes in Search Result
How can you tell if you've been impacted by Google Panda, a Google penalty, an algorithmic change, or something you've done yourself? Since Google began releasing Panda, it's been more difficult to tell the difference between Panda and a penalty.
Panda and Google Penalties share a few things in common. The major commonality is almost all pages of a site will see a precipitous drop. If you believe a site has been impacted by Panda, one of the simple tests you can do is search for a title of a page that is a long tail phrase. Take for example, Randy Godwin, he's stated his traffic has fallen dramatically (I verified it has). The question we would all like answered, is this Panda or something else like a penalty.
The first step I do is search Google for the title of a Hub that I'd consider somewhat obscure. I choose an obscure title because I want to be confident that the page does deserve to rank highly. A page that is feeling the worst of Google Panda or a penalty is not likely to rank #1, but a healthy site should for a long tail title rank near the top of page one and a head of any duplicates.
Here is an example. I searched Randy's hub "Where To Buy And How To Install A Coleman RV AC Rooftop Air Conditioner". If you see several pages coming back with the exact same title, it probably means that the piece of content you are using for the examination is too generic. In this case I see one direct match on the title and it's not Randy's Hub. It looks like a scraper/spam site has actually copied a piece of his content and is outranking him. This is a strong sign that something is wrong. A long tail phrase from a healthy site should rank ahead of a scraper. Here is an example of one of my recent Hubs, notice that pages rank higher than my Hub, but my Hub is the first with the exact title - how to crack and shell a whole lobster. At this point it's not clear if this is a Panda issue or a penalty.
To eliminate the possibility of a penalty, you should file a re-inclusion request. To do this, you must have a Google Analytics account connected to HubPages to add your subdomain to your Google webmastertools account. Google will review your account and let you know if you have a penalty. *Randy Godwin, if you do this, let me know and keep me posted of Google's response to you.
You can do a few other things to see if you have a penalty. First, search for your domain to see if it's indexed (site:randygodwin.hubpages.com). All of Randy's Hubs are indexed. Next search for the main page and see if it's in the top 30 results. Searching for "Randy Godwin" brings up his main page, so this is another sign that there isn't a penalty. The next step is to see how far you have fallen in the rankings. Take your top terms where you were near the #1 position and see how far you have fallen. A page that has fallen 10 to 20 places may have had a significant change in incoming links. Sometimes the value of links can disappear. I'd file a re-inclusion request from Google. For people that get a penalty for linking practices typically have them for 90 days and then the penalty goes away and rankings see significant increases. HubPages has been doing some pretty significant changes, so it is possible that link values are getting reassessed and impacting Randy Godwin, but it's also possible that Google has made an error in penalizing Randy because Randy is very active on HubPages and has thousands of incoming links to his subdomain. While I'm not totally sure what is impacting Randy, I think it may be a change in his incoming links that needs to get worked out. I can see him rank #1 for some terms like
Having your site impacted by Google Panda or an algorithm change isn't a penalty. Fluctuations in the search results are pretty standard. There can be large swings in traffic when a page that used to rank near the top for a keyword with lots of volume drops a few places or it can see 3X to 5X increases in traffic if it goes from #2 to #1. It's still important to know if your site has been impacted by Panda vs an algorithm change. From what I've seen a pandalized site will have almost every single long term title drop significantly. To test this, you can copy one of your Hubs to Google Knol. Then, create a page on a healthy site and link to your Hub and the Knol in the same post. If the duplicate content on the Knol ranks higher than your Hub, and Google has told you that there isn't a penalty on your site, then it's likely feeling the negative effects of a bad Panda profile.
If your Hub outranks the duplicate site, and Google says there isn't a penalty your pages are likely either feeling a different type of algorithm change that can come from numerous changes. If this happens sometimes Hubs need a little reworking to achieve better rankings and traffic. Here are a few steps to take.
1. Retitle your Hub with the main keyword at the beginning. For Example take Lily Rose's Hub - She could put, "Photo Wall Ideas" at the beginning of her Hub title. The first keyword in the title will get the most emphasis in the rankings.
2. Rework your Hub into several sections and focus the content. Lily Rose could focus on various ideas for photo walls, picture walls, and photo collage ideas. She could post original photos for each section and consider making a youtube video full of ideas. If the Hub is on a high traffic search term and used to rank near the top, it's often worth the effort. I've reworked a few of my own Hubs that were getting over 100 views a day once they fell and they did recover.
3. Sometimes Hubs go a little stale and a bit of very white hat promotion really helps. Promote the Hub by tweeting it, posting it to facebook, and blogging about it. Add a link from your youtube video to your HubPage. If Lily has her own sites on home decoration, she could link from those as well.
Scraper page outranking Randy Godwin
What we can control
One of the most difficult aspects of search engine optimization is understanding what we can control. At the end of the day, we control the architecture of our sites and most importantly the content we produce. Architecture changes settle down rather quickly while the content endures and creates the true value of a site. Here is to producing interesting, informative content that builds our own audiences.
Comments
Hmm. Maybe Google considers hotdomaingirl to be a more authoritative source of content that hubpages?
God indepth study of the problems we have been facing concerning traffic. Great suggestions for fixing it also. Will have to study thus better at another time.
Thanks Paul, but when I try to sign in as suggested it say my Google username or password is incorrect. Does my new subdomain username make a difference in my log in to GA?
And does the filing for reconsideration cover all of my hubs?
I can't figure out how to verify my subdomain w/o being able to add meta tag or edit html, edit the asynchronous snippet etc... It doesn't seem possible, or am I missing something?
Anyway, useful hub. Thanks for taking the time to succinctly put these tips in one place. Could you add some information on the process of subdomain site verification? I'm at a loss.
Sorry Paul,
I have a Google Analytics account connected to HubPages but I cannot add my subdomain to my Google webmastertools account - verification fails.
The verification using the Analytics option does not work
I have tried subdomain, www.subdomain etc. but cannot verify.
I would appreciate more details about how to do this.
Do I need to redo the analytics for the subdomain?
Analytics is tracking OK, but verification fails.
It's hard to imagine this many of my hubs nave been mistakenly regarded as being older than the scrapers copies, Paul. Plus, all of them being scraped at the same time should have alerted Google unless their system is a complete joke.
I'll try your suggestions, but if Google is no better than this at stopping copiers then I have little hope of rectifying this situation any time soon.
Did you add the GWT verification screen image after my initial comment?
Various sites have tried ways of stopping content being copied. For example - http://excerptz.com. I know there are various ways around virtually all of them, but it may be worth considering. Some are very simple such a transparent gif overlay etc. HP content is very vulnerable and Google appears to be disfunctional in not recognising the original, and protecting it by not indexing the copy. To rely on reputation to have the original rank higher is risky especially when the links and ranking are going through turmoil via the subdomains. The irony is that the original author may be hit with a duplicate penalty because Google gets it wrong or ranks the copy higher and gives it more authority.
@Janderson-This is why I think it is futile to try and recover my stolen work. If google sucks this bad, and HP has no better way to protect me from such thievery, then I don't want to be involved with either company. You can bet your ass on what my 100th hub will be about.
I'm tired of dealing with content farms and plan to warn everyone I can as to the dangers involved with writing for them or dealing with any Google related company.
I've had it with this crap, at least for tonight anyway. Disgusting!
Janderson-this has happened to Bobbirant constantly lately.
Thanks for the insight, Paul. I'm not sure that I understand everything you stated, but I've bookmarked this hub in case I ever need to deal with what has happened to Randy. Although my traffic is down from before this wek, I have only 30 hubs and as such ther ecxan't be quite a dramatic change unless no one ever read my hubs-not possible since hubbers rate hubs. Until I have about 100 hubs, I don't see how anything other than duplicate conent and keyword choice would tell me anything.
Yes you can use GA to connect a site to wmt
Thanks Paul, this is a great help.
However, I am not able to link analytics to GWT, it says its possible, but not without the asynchronous snippet.
Any idea how you can do this without subdomain GWT verification?
The verification failed in the Webmaster Tools using the GA method - it is saying that the tracking code used by my site is not associated with your Analytics account. But it is reporting on my HP account? For the non-technical how do we do it?
Here is my error message when I tried - Verification failed for http://izzym.hubpages.com/ using the Google Analytics method (less than a minute ago). The tracking code used by your site is not associated with your Analytics account.
Any other ideas?
Panda update have brought many benefits to search, removing the majority of Content Farms. However, it seems that many sites with good quality content, but lack of focus, such as writing to one subject only, have been severely penalized.
Also, that site mentioned had no ads at all. It seems that having ads and not having ads counts as a factor.
BTW, loved the graphs, they are amazing and easy to pin point the panda update vs other reason penalty.
Before I go changing anything, my Analytics is linked to my hubpages account - the old one. If I change it to the subdomain, would that work?
Hmm Ive got the same problem - tried to verify using GA account but doesn't recognise. My GA is associated with hubpages.com/lissie - and I don't want to change it and lose 3 years of history
Hi Izzy - nope, but you should change to the new subdomain anyway. Ive just done it on my analytics account and it works OK.
I did it, I changed it. Too impatient to wait for an answer. I still have my old HP account details under analytics so I suppose it is always there if I want to see the history. I've connected HP to my new code. It is still showing as "tracking not installed", but I'm hopeful that'll be all right in a couple of hours (I've seen that happen on my sites). If not, I'll be back!
I am having the same problem as mentioned above. I put in a hub including new domain name and couldn't get it verified. Page does not exisit kept coming up..
I'm getting the whole verification error as well. Paul, is it possible the new subdomains are causing this to error in the way it handles the Analytics code?
Still getting the verification error at GWT when I try to link it to my analytics account which has now been changed to the subdomain and is working fine.
If you view the source of your HP profile page, and search for "UA", you can see the proper code in there, but there another code too. I guess that is HP's code.
Learned a lot of things from your hub and book marked it. I will look into the statistics of my Hub pages.
Thanks a lot.
@Randy Godwin
Your google analytics username and password is separate from your Hubpages username and password.
Yes, when you file a reinclusion it covers all of your content.
We will get a clear set of instructions out this week for adding your account to webmastertools. For those that are trying, I didn't change anything. I just verified my site using the Google analytics option in wmt.
Well we are obviously doing something wrong because it ain't working and won't verify? Could it be the fact that you can verify your site easily and we are getting errors be what is at the heart of the problem? Is there something wrong with the way our subdomains are set up that has caused this traffic fall?
@Paul-Why not merely ask Google to do their job and quit ranking stolen articles above obviously original content? What hope do we have it won't continue to happen? If I have to clean up a mess not of my making, what am I getting for allowing you guys 40% of my revenue?
If I were in your shoes, I would be all over Googles ass for damaging my company's loyal writers work instead of making them try to clean up the mess. There are real humans who work for Google, aren't there?
Needless to say, I am plenty ticked off at both HP and Google at this point for allowing this to happen to honest people.
I mentioned in the thread and it's worth mentioning here too, I have now found two scraped articles above my original hubs since going looking following the advice in this hub. What has gone wrong and how can we fix it if we can't contact Google via the webmaster's tools?
This is very interesting - I'd "like" it but the traffic fall is too painful at the moment. I tried to verify my new subdomain in analytics (my old profile is verified) and it didn't seem to work. I'll look for further instruction on how to do this soon.
I will tell you that this reminds me of the google sandbox/dance (yes I know it's not really a sandbox) I have had on a few of my newer sites after drastically changing the way that my site looked. Others have received this penalty for linking - but since I doubt Randy was linking (I wasn't doing anything promotional at the time of my fall either) I don't think that this is the reason. This is backed up by the penalty of other unique/ well-written content.
My guess is that we just have to wait it out - last time this happened to me it took around 90 days (as you mentioned). Hopefully it will be fixed by November; however, an additional concern of mine is why a few of my hubs are still doing fairly well. I'd actually be less concerned if they all tanked (if that makes sense).
It's horribe that a scraper can steal content like that and outrank the original author. They are no better than pirates.
I haven't had time to try this yet, but I assume you would need to create an analytics channel for your subdomain, verify that, and then set up google webmaster tools
Hi Paul, this Panda/Penalty stuff has been a huge mystery to me so I will bookmark for reference - I need all the help I can get when it comes to understanding the mind of Google. Thanks for taking the time to put together such useful information.
Cloverleaf.
All subdomains are set up the same way. I'll get an update on this tomorrow.
One option people have is filing dmca complaints against scrapers.
Thanks, Paul. I found this, and think it's worth a look.
Further, looking at the source code of your profile page, there is something different between it and the example in the link above. That could be intentional, but it is different,
Thanks Paul, we here on HP all needed this.
Not sure that this means anything.
Analytics is working for my subdomain but I cannot verify on Webmaster Central using analytics option
My reference to analytics on view source is commented out whereas Paul's is not.
mine
==> link analytics and adsense
blah blah script
end link analytics and adsense ==>
My analytics is working and tracking!!!!
Paul, just sent you an email with some interesting, but hopelessly geeked-out stuff that probably would just clutter up the comments. I found some odd things in the odd and wanted to let you know.
Thats....."odd things in the code" :-)
I don't understand how a giant like Google cannot come up with a better way to track thieves and pirates of the internet. I went through this all the time with a few of my highest paid articles at the old eHow. I had to file a dmca complaint more than once, and although that worked, I question why content sites don't give is the ability to put a watermark or something on our content to ward off these lazy wannabes? Panda seems to me to be the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, without a heart for the real writers who work hard at their content. I am bookmarking this and sharing with writers from other content sites. Hope some new advances come out soon, so us common folks can keep more or our hard-earned money. It's beginning to feel more and more like big brother and his demand of more and more taxes, leaving us with potatoes and beans for supper every night.
Thanks Paul. Bookmarking this to come back and study this.
Thanks Paul,
I tried to add my profile to webtools, but it wouldn't verify. What do I need to do to get it to verify. I kept getting the screen from hubpages that says the user doesn't exist. Thanks for the info and help.
I have the same results as others...Failed to verify.
Thankfully I have remained unaffected, but if I had been I wouldn't be worrying. All of these subdomains are brand new, if you start a new Wordpress site or any type of blog or website you can expect plenty of Google dancing for the first 6 to 12 months. It takes a year for my Wordpress sites to stablize, up, down, up, down, that's just what can be expected of a new web property whether that is a blogger blog or a completely custom coded site on a dedicated server. The best thing that any of you can do is to continue doing whatever it was that you were doing before the decline in traffic, they almost always come back, and more often than not they come back stronger.
That is not what I would be emailing that thief Cutts.
Tweet Matt Cutts personally?
ROFLMAO.
Good grief.
I'm too lost to follow this conversation now. I just want to write and not have to worry about who is or isn't copying me. I'll think about it later. I've got too much writing on line to try to track down crooks. I've bookmarked this for when I'm in more of a fighting mood.
Am also not able to verify my webmaster account through analytics so will wait until some kind of detailed walk-through or solution is offered.
I noticed that my amazon-focused hubs took a disproportionally large decline as compared to my other style of hubs. That leads me to think that this is different than a google penalty.
Gosh, I wish I understood all of this.
Mutiny92 - I have seen no such issues with Amazon hubs, neither has Len Cannon, so I wouldn't be too quick to pinpoint that.
I found this article helpful, especially the examples. I understand better now the impact of the Panda program and the difference between that and a Google penalty. Thanks, Paul. The examples really help.
Thanks Paul, I was just about to post on the forum asking about new ways to optimize my hubs before coming across this hub. Very informative, great to see hubpages making a recovery.Its a great site with a great community.
Is it pointless to build backlinks to my hubs, while I am being "sandboxed" by Google, will building backlinks help my rankings after Google settles down and my hubs start to appear on Google's search results again?
Also, Why are some hubbers being affected by this and some are not?
And thanks for this helpful hub Paul. :)
I would be glad if it is not an amazon-related issue.
Anyone that was having trouble verifying their subdomain in Webmastertools can now give it a try. We fixed an issue that was preventing Google from recognizing it correctly.
I just did it, successfully :)
"Congratulations, you have successfully verified your ownership of http://uzdawi.hubpages.com/"
Thanks!
So, I just cam back to HubPages. Do I have to get verified due to the recent subdomain changes?
I hope my email helped!
Excellent! I am now verified too! Now to go complain or whatever it is they want.
We are seeing several Hubs targeting Amazon doing fine. We finished the move to subdomains on Sunday. I'm continuing to see what we can find out for people that have gone down. At this point there are some similarities between authors that were impacted negatively, but they're by no means the rule.
Mine says that the tracking is not working? I'm supposed to copy and paste code into my Hub Page? Anyone got a tip for me how to get the tracking working?
@jseven Select the other option link at the top of the webmastertools page and then use the google analytics option.
Thanks, got it!
Thanks for the fix! Webmasters tools has now verified.
Thanks again Paul! I managed to file a re-inclusion request as you suggested and included this article so they could see some of the problems I (and others) have experienced of late.
I continue to try and find my stolen articles but am not having too much success in that endeavor. Perhaps I am going about it the wrong way but I am very ignorant of the proper way to find thieves on the internet. They seem to have no problem finding me, however.
I did notice my former most viewed hub is now listed #1 on the second page of Google when, before this recent plunge, it was listed #2 on the first page behind my #1 ranked Blogger listing. A few days ago I couldn't find it at all, so perhaps things may be settling down a bit.
Thanks again for your help and I'll let you know what response, if any, I get from Google.
Randy
@Randy did your blogger page drop as well? What's the URL to that page? One thing that is hard for us to see is what practices and tools people use off of hub pages that can influence their rankings.
I personally only promote my hubs on facebook, twitter and my personal blogs. I've also started Hubbing on current topics.
My Blogger page is still #1 when I Google RV AC repair, Paul. It did drop to the top of the 2nd page for a bit but is back at #1 now. I'm not sure if the results I see are the same as if someone else searched the term, though.
My Blogger page is:
http://rvandcamperrepairarticles.blogspot.com/
I only have 1 post and it has been there for quite some time now. It is only links to my RV repair hubs but I will remove it if you think it is causing problems.
@Randy I think you are seeing personalized google results for your blogger page. Sign out of google and try the search again.
arrrgg I can't add the site.. Tried under HTML and under view source and the code keeps showing up in my regular text. Maybe I will try on IE when I get home instead of Mozilla. If anyone has an obvious tip for me I am all ears..
I still think HP should look at ways to stop copying - even if it only stops some it. If this can or can't be done I think there is a better way of dealing with copy cheats. The reporting of copying is a lot cause - it is hard to find the copies on 100+ pages and they will keep appearing, it will be an endless battle. As Paul has implied the best strategy is to out-rank the copies - sounds bizarre to have to outrank your own material but this may be reality. As have mentioned elsewhere, with quality backlinks you can get a page score or 3 or 4 for a page on HP. I would suggest that this is a win-win - improve your rank to get more traffic and to beat the copy cheats by outranking them on HP. But you need to be proactive and build links - not wait for organic ones - otherwise Google may see your original as the copy and penalise you! The links must be quality links as poor links can be penalised.
Build backlinks to outrank the cheats - a better way to go if you have > 50 pages and good authority.
Paul, sorry to take so long to respond but I have several other occupations to attend to and just got in.
You are correct about the Blogger page. It disappeared after I logged out of Google but my hub is still listed at the top of page 2. Not sure if that is right either.
I have been trying to find my copied hubs but it's a slow go for me as I'm not accustomed to dealing with thieves. I take that back, I forgot about Helium. LOL!
@Randy No worries. It usually takes a few days to get a response from Google on the reinclusion request.
I wouldn't worry about tracking down scrapers until you hear back from them. I hope you pointed Google to the one example I posted here so they can see the issue of the scraper outranking you.
Your drop coincides with a drop in traffic from other sites that are in the affiliate marketing space (see the alexa graph for thefind.com as an example), some authors on HubPages, and the period we were at about a 25% transition to subdomains.
We've been able to verify that similar subdomains on HubPages that have been on subdomains as long as yours are doing fine. This is a little strange if it were algorithmic unless the issue was caused by something like external links off of HubPages, otherwise I'd expect to see site wide drops if it were algorithmic. It's possible Google hasn't calculated the incoming links to your hubs since they've moved and that's enough to change your rankings. If that's the case, it likely to bounce back. Lastly there could be a penalty on your subdomain (don't think it's Panda) so the feedback you get from Google will help in the process of elimination.
Okay Paul. For now I'm in limbo, but I can't think of anything I've done to be penalized for. I just want to write and not have to bother with linking, or backlinking, or chasing down thieves, or riding a roller coaster.
Perhaps I have one business too many! :)
Keep me posted and perhaps Google will deign to respond to my request eventually.
Randy, I hope you don't take offence at this but your first name in the UK has other connotations as you may know. So maybe the fact that this word is in your hubs might be detrimental. Probably a stab in the dark but thought I would point it out anyway :-)
Thanks Azure, but I've never received that much traffic from the UK anyway. It's my Google.com traffic which has plunged. I suppose they're trying to make an example out of me. For what, I haven't found out yet. :)
Ok .. I am finally verified and submitted my URL to the webmaster.. no data yet..
A very useful hub. I learned a lot.
Thanks for the insight info, great hub!
Thank you, Paul, for your great information but iy id way above my head and knowledge of computer. Sorry.
I am still nowhere near understanding why my traffic stats dropped, why they have stayed low or what I can do about it? Google have not replied to the reinclusion request I put through several weeks ago and the HP team have not replied to my email. I feel that I have been hung out to dry by them both, but stil don't know what I have done wrong!!!!
@CMHypno - For people that have seen drops, we are still working on it. While it's not conclusive, and we have seen a few people recover I think it's similar to a penalty on your subdomain.
I think people will need to test themselves to find a path to recovery since each person's writing is different.
I put this together http://pauledmondson.hubpages.com/hub/Writing-Cont
While I recommended removing content, I've seen accounts recover that didn't.
I
I have a sister-in-law and her husband who own a business. They were getting terrible results with Google and paying extreme amounts for ads. They now use Bing and Yahoo and business boomed. Thought it was worth sharing with y'all. Google is a big "bear" anymore.
This was very interesting but way above my head and not too encouraging for someone new to HP. I do hope it will work out before I get courage enough to jump into writing hubs
Everybody writing about a good content and yes, I agree but what is rated as a good content. I wrote quite a few about various subject such as history, animals and countries. My clicks went up to about 400 a day and I was thrilled to bits. I know to top gurus it is nothing. The evil Goggle started and I am down to 150 or 180 which is heart breaking. I think I wrote a good content but how do I know and apparently not according to Google.I feel like I am running against a wall. If, you could help, Paul, to get my clicks up I'll be grateful. Also, my hubs are all marked with an 'A' meaning SUMMARY but a number of them have summaries, so how do I get rid of the A?
Very interesting hub - shows how quickly things can change for people but I guess it works both ways - if one page goes down in rank, someone else have a chance to go higher. I don't mean a copy like in the example - that's nasty, but I mean in general - it gives hope that nothing is ever decided and new writers still have a chance to shine :)
I also can see that all that happened more than 6 weeks ago so I was really lucky joining HubPages after all that turmoil (3 weeks for me here)
Interesting stuff. I had a hunpage that moved from 4th in a Google search to page 3 - I was just about to file a re-inclusion request - I noticed that my sub-domain wasn't added in the Webmasters tools so I added it - on going back to the Google search I found that my Hubmoved back to 4th.
Is this simply a coincidence that I was working on this as Panda updated or does adding to Webmaster tools make that much difference?
Thanks, Paul. I found this hub extremely valuable as something similar happened to me. I had some hubs ranking near the top on Google and then poof! Not even in the top 30 pages. I'm going to take your suggestions and try to find out what's going on.
sunforged 9 months ago
hmm .. so can one use GA! to connect a HP subdomain to GWT?
That would make a good blog post or highlighted HP help entry. Before reading this I was unaware that you could add a site to GWT without being able to add an html verification file.
I didnt try, but I see that it is an option in the G dashboard