Search Marketing Sage

I wouldn't hurt your website, would I?

Several weeks ago I attended a session at SES New York titled “Panda: The Aftermath,” which discussed the Google Panda/Farmer update in February.  Many people gathered to mourn their website’s lost rankings and to gather hope that they could recover.  But up until this point, the Panda update has only affected the United States.  On April 11th, Google expanded the Panda update to include all English language searchers outside the United States.

How Have Websites Been Affected?

Search Engine Land has a great blog post of how several websites have been impacted in “Winners & Losers As Panda Goes Global? eHow, Bing’s Ciao.co.uk & More.”  The post shows the results of Sistrix’s measurements of visibility scores before and after the update.  Topping the list is eHow’s UK site which took an 84% hit in visibility.  Other sites with big drops included ciao.co.uk, Bing’s comparison shopping site, which saw an 81% drop in visibility, and Associated Content from Yahoo which showed an 82% drop.

When people think about pandas, they generally think of the furry bears in zoos, or all the movies with cute depictions of Pandas.  But as Stephen Colbert will tell you, they are still bears! The Google Panda update was unpleasant for most people, a good kick in the butt by a more Kung Fu panda, if you will.  A highly anticipated session here at SES New York, “Panda: The Aftermath,” discussed the infamous Google Panda/Farmer algorithm update and the impact it had.

Speakers included:

• Jonathan Allen, Director of SearchEngineWatch
• Frank Watson, CEO of Kangamurra Media
• Danny Goodwin, associate editor of SearchEngineWatch

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