There was an article over at Motley Fool yesterday by Adam Levy that took a look at how one Google algorithm changed can ruin a business. The article discussed the recent Panda change and the effect on RetailMeNot.
From the article:
Last week, shares of RetailMeNot (NASDAQ: SALE ) slid over 20% over the course of two days after a report from SearchMetrics found that the website’s visibility had fallen 33% on Google’s search engine. The decline came after Google released an update to its search algorithm, dubbed Panda 4.0. Considering that RetailMeNot receives approximately 65% of its traffic from search engines, this could be a huge blow to the number of people clicking on its coupon codes.
The article went on to take a look at Demand Media which it an all time low of $3.62 and has since bounced back to $4.69 today.
How and why Google subverted Demand Media
Demand Media’s most important property is eHow.com. The website accounted for 30% and 31% of the company’s total revenue in 2012 and 2013, respectively. No other property accounted for more than 10% of revenue. Last year, eHow.com acquired half of its traffic from Google searches, according to the company’s 10-K report.Unfortunately for Demand Media and its shareholders, eHow.com is exactly the type of website Google is punishing with its Panda updates. The site’s content is often vague and uninformative. The writers usually show very little, if any, subject expertise, and viewers quickly realize the site probably doesn’t have the answers they were looking for.
Demand Media follows similar models for most of its web properties, which also rely heavily on search traffic. As a result, unique visitors across Demand Media’s sites fell from 120 million before Panda to 88 million in January 2014.
Read the full story here
I can attest to Googles updates causing massive damage to businesses. Could you repost the link to the original story on Motley? I found this one but it’s not by the writer you mention : http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/05/25/will-google-incs-algorithm-update-hurt-retailmenot.aspx?source=isesitlnk0000001&mrr=1.00
Thanks,
Ira
@ Ira
Here is the correct link to the Motley Fool article –
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/05/28/how-one-google-algorithm-update-can-kill-a-busines.aspx
FYI, Raymond the “Read full story here” link is busted.
Fixed it, copied and pasted link but copied and pasted over it a second time, so now it is fixed. Thank you
Ira the link is fixed at the end of the post. Thank you for the comment.
If anyone else has an interest in reading an excellent article talking about the devastation Googles Panda/Penguin “quality updates” check out this article by Josh Bachynski … http://themoralconcept.net check out the comments as well there are some very interesting takes “for and against” Google.
“It’s not really a matter of if Google pulls the rug out from under you, it’s a matter of when.”
Less than 2 months ago Priceonomics wrote a great article on Retail Me Not and how much they rely on Google. Interesting to know that Google is actually an investor in Retail Me Not. Go figure.
http://priceonomics.com/the-seo-dominance-of-retailmenot/
Thanks folks … I think the story is just unfolding on this move by Google. They’ve called many of the sites that got hit that weren’t the “intended targets” collateral damage. Google has caused some mass damage with these updates to legitimate sites and businesses. If they wanted to live up to their desire to “improve search quality” and not just destroy small business they’ll take some ownership of the “side effects” by helping out those who were hurt by the updates. I can see them being greeted by some nice juicy lawsuits over this.