Google launched the Panda update recently in the U.S. in order to improve search result quality. Now they have rolled it out for all English searches Worldwide. This has had serious ramifications in the U.K.
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The Panda update, has affected several sites in the U.S. and now a number of sites have been affected in the U.K. as well. The resulting loss of search ranking has meant lower traffic referrals to those sites.
Data from German SEO tools developer, Sistrix, has revealed that article sites, price comparison sites and business directories, in general, have suffered a setback.
Searchmetrics has released some initial data on the matter. This data is based on the Organic Performance Index, which is calculated according to a keyword’s search volume, position and the statistical value of traffic distribution.
According to Searchmetrics’ report, the 10 biggest losers are:
- pricedash.com (-99.7%)
- discountshoppinguk.co.uk (-99.3%)
- webdevelopersnotes.com (-98.9%)
- netvouchercodes.co.uk (-98.7%)
- pocket-lint.com (-98.7%)
- killerstartups.com (-98.3%)
- wakoopa.com (-98.1%)
- aceshowbiz.com (-98.0%)
- everydaysale.co.uk (-97.8%)
- electricpig.co.uk (-97.2%)
Ehow.co.uk and ehow.com, which had done well in the U.S. following the Panda update, have suffered a setback in the U.K.
Update: Sistrix have released a follow-up report, which found that ehow was actually quite badly affected in the U.S. too.
Some of the common reasons why these sites have lost ranking are too many links taking you away from the main page, too many broken links, expired vouchers or deals, too many ads and lack of original content.
Among the top sites to have gained in ranking due to the Panda update are:
- ebay.co.uk (+42.1%)
- techcrunch.com (+40.7%)
- national-lottery.co.uk (+39.5%)
- econsultancy.com (+37.1%)
- thisismoney.co.uk (30.1%)
- siteslike.com (+25.4%)
- mirror.co.uk (24.9%)
- blogspot.com (22.8%)
- mashable.com (22.6%)
- itv.com (22.4%)
Sites that have lost their ranking from the first two pages of Google’s search results could be badly affected by this update. We have seen historically that most users do not click beyond the first page of Google search results. Therefore the casualties of this update could suffer a serious loss of traffic.
wow. .that’s a good policy now. .
when it was going to implement worldwide?
What makes a website hit so hard by Google Panda
@Kiran usually when websites do not have useful content, often featuring the same content that’s just been re-hashed from other websites, then the Google Panda update identifies those sites as low quality and does not feature them in the search results.
its good for quality sites, content farms are only affected by google panda updation
The CEO of econsultancy.com commented elsewhere on another article quoting these stats that they’d seen zero benefit from Panda.
Given that this data says they saw a 37% increase and the 4th biggest gain it throws doubt over this whole data set – including the biggest loser table.
Good to know that, good policy..