Demand Media: Panda's Impact On eHow.com "Significantly Overstated"

Demand Media says recent reports have “significant overstated” the impact of Google’s Panda update on eHow.com, its flagship website.

In a brief statement issued early this morning, the company says:

Certain third parties that have published reports attempting to estimate the effect of recent search engine algorithm changes made by Google on traffic to the Company’s owned and operated websites have significantly overstated the negative impact of those changes on traffic to eHow.com, as compared to the Company’s directly measured internal data. Recent search engine algorithm changes have negatively impacted search driven traffic to some of our websites, including eHow.com, resulting in moderately lower year-to-date page view growth for the Company’s owned and operated Content & Media properties compared to page view growth rates before the algorithm changes.

As we reported over the weekend, a measurement from Sistrix says eHow.com suffered a 66% decline in Sistrix’s Visibility Index. In a blog post supporting the statement, Demand’s Larry Fitzgibbon challenges a third-party report “projecting a 2/3rds decline in eHow.com traffic” — likely the Sistrix report. (Technically, the 66% that Sistrix reported is a decline in visibility, not specifically in traffic.)

Demand Media’s statement goes on to say that the company expects year-over-year page view growth across its network to be similar or better in Q2 of 2011 than the second quarter of 2010.

About The Author: Matt McGee is Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. You can read Matt's disclosures on his personal blog. See more articles by Matt McGee

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http://macgizmoguy.com MGG

I recently stumbled on a MEANINGLESS eHow article about “Bluetooth Cables” – You know, those imaginary wires you connect WIRELESS computing devices with.

That’s just a sample of the GARBAGE they write about – and RANK for. I guess in this statement they’re bragging how much of their garbage still ranks well with Google, far better than it deserves to be. Well, may the next algo tweak send your empire into the dregs where it belongs. We don’t need ‘content’ inspired by keyword-frequency databases.
http://AppleSlut.com Tony Stocco

Look at that quote – 2 sentences and 98 words and a big, ugly paragraph! They only produce content for the web right? Don’t they know to keep sentences & paragraphs short? Yuck.
http://www.echwa.com Damien Anderson

^ Ditto
http://searchenginereports.net Garry Egan

Answers.com should be next on the chopping block IMO. You should see that the bulk of their content is just content titled with the phrases of inbound search queries with no content.