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.