Google algorithm update downgrades Microsoft
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Google has ramped up its rivalry with Microsoft by knocking the latter’s price comparison and reviews site Ciao down the search rankings in its latest algorithm update.
Product comparison, reviews and voucher code sites all fared badly from Google’s “Panda” update that aimed to improve the quality of the search engine’s results.
Ciao’s UK site lost 94% of its SEO visibility after the update went live in the UK earlier this week.
The move increases the tension between the two companies at the top of the search market.
Ciao and other Microsoft sites including Foundem and ejustice.fr complained to the EU that Google was abusing its dominant position by lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competitor services in November.
Microsoft declined to comment.
Google says its Panda update aimed to reduce the visibility of “low quality websites” that carry duplicate content that can be found elsewhere on the web. Google has also reduced the visibility of sites that carry heavy advertising.
However, the update has punished many sites that legitimately duplicate content such as product descriptions.
User recommendation site Qype lost almost 96% of its SEO visibility following the update but the company says it is relaxed about its new Google positioning, with a source adding: “it’s still very much business as usual”.
Other brands that suffered from the Panda update included Play.com, ehow.co.uk, about.com and Future Publishing’s Tech Radar.
However, the update benefited many other media sites including Tech Radar rival Tech Crunch, owned by AOL, which saw visibility increase by 41%. Mirror.co.uk, ITV.com and Metro.co.uk all saw visibility boosted by about 20%.
The search visibility data was compiled by Berlin-based search analytics company SearchMetrics that looked at how sites’ visibility fared before and after Google’s Panda update against popular keywords.
SearchMetrics CTO Marcus Tober says the brands affected by the Panda update can still turnaround their search visibility.
He says: “One of the important things to remember is that you must make your site useful to your visitors first - by putting information up there that is truly valuable and different.”
Tober adds that it is likely Google will fine tune its algorithm update in the coming weeks so that some sites will not take such a “painful hit”.
Top 20 ’losers’ from Google’s Panda UK update (Source: Search Metrics)
| Domain | New visbility | Old visibility | Change | % |
| moneypage.com | 25 | 39231 | -39206 | -99.94 |
| pricedash.com | 127 | 55141 | -55014 | -99.77 |
| njobs.org.uk | 92 | 30693 | -30601 | -99.7 |
| voucherstar.co.uk | 126 | 38748 | -38622 | -99.67 |
| osoyou.com | 96 | 26668 | -26572 | -99.64 |
| zath.co.uk | 161 | 39768 | -39607 | -99.6 |
| shoppingvouchers.co.uk | 134 | 30056 | -29922 | -99.55 |
| discountshoppinguk.co.uk | 491 | 66270 | -65779 | -99.26 |
| just-food.com | 293 | 39282 | -38989 | -99.25 |
| webdevelopersnotes.com | 583 | 54948 | -54365 | -98.94 |
| netvouchercodes.co.uk | 1935 | 152376 | -150441 | -98.73 |
| pocket-lint.com | 2128 | 165956 | -163828 | -98.72 |
| killerstartups.com | 869 | 52717 | -51848 | -98.35 |
| wakoopa.com | 1334 | 71525 | -70191 | -98.13 |
| aceshowbiz.com | 907 | 46188 | -45281 | -98.04 |
| everydaysale.co.uk | 3822 | 175800 | -171978 | -97.83 |
| hotfrog.co.uk | 1124 | 44863 | -43739 | -97.49 |
| phonesreview.co.uk | 864 | 33418 | -32554 | -97.41 |
| electricpig.co.uk | 1678 | 60882 | -59204 | -97.24 |
| kgbanswers.co.uk | 1009 | 31427 | -30418 | -96.79 |
Top 20 Winners from Google’s ’Panda’ UK update (Source: Search Metrics)
| domain | New visibility | Old visibility | Change | % |
| ebay.co.uk | 1469346 | 1034302 | 435044 | 42.1 |
| techcrunch.com | 174797 | 124220 | 50577 | 40.7 |
| national-lottery.co.uk | 292053 | 209357 | 82696 | 39.5 |
| econsultancy.com | 186175 | 135804 | 50371 | 37.1 |
| thisismoney.co.uk | 234717 | 180377 | 54340 | 30.1 |
| siteslike.com | 175869 | 140279 | 35590 | 25.4 |
| mirror.co.uk | 275876 | 220937 | 54939 | 24.9 |
| blogspot.com | 1006719 | 819832 | 186887 | 22.8 |
| mashable.com | 295137 | 240714 | 54423 | 22.6 |
| itv.com | 345470 | 282300 | 63170 | 22.4 |
| metro.co.uk | 181507 | 149271 | 32236 | 21.6 |
| independent.co.uk | 471896 | 388280 | 83616 | 21.5 |
| mozilla.org | 146282 | 122471 | 23811 | 19.4 |
| youtube.com | 8856696 | 7446902 | 1409794 | 18.9 |
| vimeo.com | 168979 | 142182 | 26797 | 18.9 |
| wordpress.com | 331836 | 279738 | 52098 | 18.6 |
| laterooms.com | 150533 | 127297 | 23236 | 18.3 |
| dailymotion.com | 577590 | 490328 | 87262 | 17.8 |
| soundcloud.com | 150998 | 128569 | 22429 | 17.5 |
Readers' comments (4)
Anonymous | Fri, 15 Apr 2011 7:51 pm
If anyone wished for me to send them an image of our analytics then please contact me. Our traffic levels have not changed.
I am pleased to say that our staff and customers are no longer worried. After Search Metrics published some false data I have had to calm fears. Maybe their data is not what they are stating. Check your facts guys.
Regards
Doug Scott
MD
www.discountvouchers.co.uk
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SEO Experts | Sat, 16 Apr 2011 7:03 am
Thanks for this huge information really One of the important things to remember is that you must make your site useful to your visitors first - by putting information up there that is truly valuable and different.
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Epiphany Solutions | Thu, 21 Apr 2011 4:58 pm
No matter what the results are we need to remember this update is for the quality of search results, once sites get their strategy sorted and rewrite their content we'll all be back on a level playing field and the quality of the SERPs will once again be questionable.
It's been known for a long time that duplicate content isn't a good idea so there aren't really any excuses, ebay's model has paid dividends as not only is most of their content user generated they also spend time rewriting a proportion of content supplied by 3rd party feeds into the stores.
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Anonymous | Wed, 3 Aug 2011 4:11 pm
"No matter what the results are we need to remember this update is for the quality of search results, once sites get their strategy sorted and rewrite their content we'll all be back on a level playing field"
You could not be farther from the mark. I have auught up a lot on the new panda update and in theory I champion it, but in reality it blows. Luckily my sites have not been hit (as they are fairly targeted and fill a niche) but some of the sites that have been hit by 99% reductions in traffic just don't make sense especially in the tec blog theme. Blogs posting unique, insightful content who manage scrapers seem to have been hit as hard as other blogs who post regurgitated 50 word tosh. When you look a little deeper it really does not seem to add up.
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