Feb 26, 2013 at 8:30am ET by Matt McGee

(Editor's Note: This is the final article in a 3-part series looking at the aftermath of Google's Panda algorithm update, which launched February 24, 2011. To catch up, please see the first two articles in the series: Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real Recovery and Google Panda Two Years Later: The Real Impact Beyond Rankings & SEO Visibility.) In the two years since Google rolled out the Panda update, many of the "losers" are still losing, and several others have been impacted beyond rankings and SEO. HubPages.com fits both descriptions. Launched in [...]

Google Panda Two Years Later: The Real Impact Beyond Rankings & SEO Visibility

Feb 25, 2013 at 8:45am ET by Matt McGee

(Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of articles looking at the aftermath of Google's Panda algorithm update, which launched February 24, 2011. To catch up, please see the first article in the series: Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real Recovery.) Google's Panda algorithm update, which launched two years ago, had an enormous impact on the SEO industry and online publishing as a whole. As with any Google algo change, there are winners and losers in its search results. In part one of this series, we looked at the current search visibility of some of P [...]

Google Panda Two Years Later: Losers Still Losing & One Real Recovery

Feb 24, 2013 at 9:00am ET by Matt McGee

(Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of articles looking at the aftermath of Google's Panda algorithm update, which launched February 24, 2011.) Two years ago today, Google sent shockwaves through not only the SEO industry, but also through online publishing in general when it launched the Panda algorithm update. It was originally called the "farmer" update because Google's prime target was "content farms," a name used to describe sites that created high-quantities of low-quality content that sometimes ranked highly in Google's search results. Although Google didn't specifically [...]

Panda Update 3.5 Is Live: Winners & Losers

Apr 25, 2012 at 2:02pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Last week, Google released a new update to its Panda algorithm that targets low-quality content. Who won and who lost? Searchmetrics has posted an analysis of that. Our original story here reported the winners/losers list, as Searchmetrics did, showing who was estimated to have gained and lost in the new Penguin Update that was released this week by Google. Penguin targets not low-quality content but outright spam. No one knew that there had been a Panda Update that also happened, one that in fact was likely responsible for most of the changes on the lists. This was confirmed by the h [...]

Infographic: The Google Panda Update, One Year Later

Feb 24, 2012 at 11:55am ET by Search Engine Land Infographics

One year ago, Google launched its "Panda Update" designed to filter low quality or "thin" content from its top search results. Below, our infographic produced in conjunction with BlueGlass covers how Panda works, what it impacted and the various updates from Panda 1.0 through Panda 3.2 that have happened along the way. After the infographic, you'll also find more information about the Panda Update ranging from in-depth analysis of how it works, "winners and losers" and well as recovery tips. (Note: An earlier version of this infographic listed scraper sites as something targeted by Pa [...]

Google Panda Update Costs Demand Media $6.4 Million In 4th Quarter?

Feb 17, 2012 at 3:22pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Demand Media posts $6.4-million loss in fourth quarter from the Los Angeles Times reports that Google's Panda algorithm is mostly to blame for Demand Media's $6.4 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2011. Demand Media released their earnings report last night, showing revenues up 15% year over year, but profits down from a positive $1 million in the 4th quarter of 2010 to a loss of $6.4 million in the 4th quarter of 2011. Overall, Demand Media lost $18.5 million over the 2011 fiscal year. Our very own Greg Sterling told the LA Times, "When you generate articles based on keywords, you [...]

Google & Bing Have “Won A Major Victory” Over Content Farms, Study Says

Dec 16, 2011 at 3:41pm ET by Matt McGee

Search engines have "won a major victory" in their battle against so-called content farms. So says the current issue of New Scientist magazine, in an article that's also available online. New Scientist asked University of Glasgow computer scientist Richard McCreadie to study 50 search queries that are "known to be a target of content farmers." One example query given is "how to train for a marathon." McCreadie studied those queries in both March and August, and the magazine says "the results show that Google and Microsoft have won a major victory" against content farms. The results are s [...]

Yahoo Deletes 75,000 Associated Content Articles, Moves Rest To New Yahoo Voices Site

Dec 1, 2011 at 6:12pm ET by Matt McGee

Yahoo is cleaning up Associated Content by deleting some of the articles, moving the keepers to Yahoo's domain and giving the site a new name, too. And next year, Yahoo will begin an online training course to help its writers create higher quality content. The company has announced plans to "retire" more than 75,000 Associated Content articles, keep only "the best content submitted over the last seven years," and move it all to a new site, Yahoo! Voices (www.voices.yahoo.com). In the process, Yahoo has also introduced new submission guidelines for its army of writers. Associated Content [...]

Google Panda 2.5: Losers Include Today Show, The Next Web; Winners Include YouTube, Fox News

Oct 1, 2011 at 1:47pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Searchmetrics has a pretty good track record of figuring out who lost after one of Google's Panda Updates. Among the latest victims of this week's Panda Update 2.5, some unexpected surprises: popular tech blog The Next Web, blog aggregator Technorati, and NBC's The Today Show. Winners include Google's own YouTube, along with Fox News and several other mainstream news sites. Apparently, that patented SEO process that Business Wire just announced isn't much help to the company. It was listed among the victims, along with PR Newswire. About The Losers The names are from a report that Searc [...]

Panda’s Winners & Losers In Germany: Bing’s Ciao.de, Wikio.de & More

Aug 15, 2011 at 1:37pm ET by Matt McGee

Google has again slapped a comparison shopping site owned by its primary search competitor, Bing, as part of its most recent expansion of the "Panda" algorithm update. It's only been a few days since Google pushed out Panda around the world in all languages except Chinese, Japanese and Korean. But Searchmetrics has already published its list of German sites that Panda has impacted both positively and negatively. The biggest loser in terms of overall organic visibility? That would be Ciao.de, a comparison shopping site that Bing owns. Searchmetrics says that Ciao's overall visibility d [...]

New York Times: Yes, Google’s Panda Update Hit NYT-Owned About.com

Apr 29, 2011 at 2:53pm ET by Matt McGee

The New York Times Company has confirmed recent reports that its About.com property was one of the sites that suffered traffic declines in the wake of Google's recent Panda/Farmer algorithm change. Speaking during its recent earnings call, CEO Janet Robinson said that About.com "experienced a moderately negative impact on page views from the algorithm changes Google implemented in the quarter." About.com was included on several third-party reports listing sites that were hurt by Google's changes, but the general consensus was that many other sites had been hurt worse. The second link in [...]

Hitwise Data Pegs Panda Impact On Demand Media Sites At 40%

Apr 25, 2011 at 7:07pm ET by Matt McGee

Demand Media sites have suffered an estimated loss of about 40% of overall Google traffic since the Panda/Farmer update took effect. That's according to new Experian Hitwise statistics measuring outbound traffic from Google to other sites, and reported today by Forbes. The Hitwise numbers suggest that about 0.57% of all outbound Google traffic went to Demand Media sites in early January, but that's dropped to 0.34% as of April 23rd. That's an overall loss of 40% when measuring outbound/downstream traffic from Google. On an individual basis, Hitwise includes these Demand sites and their e [...]

Demand Media: Panda’s Impact On eHow.com “Significantly Overstated”

Apr 18, 2011 at 4:50am ET by Matt McGee

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 ne [...]

Panda Update: Google Lowers The Boom On eHow.com

Apr 16, 2011 at 7:00pm ET by Matt McGee

After escaping damage in the first rollout of Google's Farmer/Panda update, Demand Media's eHow.com was reportedly not as fortunate in this week's expansion. Sistrix, one of the companies that's been tracking the impact of Google's changes, says that eHow.com was hit hard by the latest Panda update. We already reported the Sistrix (and other) numbers showing that eHow.co.uk and eHow.com were hit outside the US this week; Sistrix's latest numbers also show that eHow.com is seeing less visibility inside the US, too. As the chart above shows, eHow.com's search visibility has tanked sinc [...]

Winners & Losers As Panda 2.0 Goes Global? eHow, Bing’s Ciao.co.uk & More

Apr 13, 2011 at 7:23pm ET by Matt McGee

It's only been 48 hours since Google expanded the Panda/Farmer update to all English language searches outside the US, and we're already seeing reports about who the early winners and losers are. In some cases, the names are familiar if you followed the original reports when the algorithm change first hit in the US in late February. But there are also some new names, including a notable one that was missing the first time around. Sistrix Visibility Index Losers Earlier today, Sistrix posted its initial list of the 30 biggest losers from Panda's expansion. It's based on an analysis of a [...]

Number Crunchers: Who Lost In Google’s Panda Algorithm Change?

Feb 26, 2011 at 3:57pm ET by Danny Sullivan

On Thursday, Google announced a major change to its search algorithm, designed to weed out shallow and low-quality content from its top search results. Content farms were seen by many as the target. Were they hit? Who was hit? Some figures are coming out. If you were expecting these figures to show Demand Media's eHow site to have been harmed -- surprise! Two studies show eHow actually gained. I'm still crunching through some of the figures, but the biggest "content farm" type brand that seems to have suffered are Associated Content. Sistrix's Visibility Index Losers Over at Sistrix, the [...]

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