How Google’s Panda Filter May Have Hurt Ask, eBay & Google-Backed RetailMeNot

On Tuesday, Google released a rewrite to their Panda filter algorithm and both large and small sites took notice. Some sites gained in traffic and some sites dove in traffic, we have the Winners & Losers chart for Panda 4.0 already published.

But as of this morning, Searchmetrics has updated their weekly US charts, showing the real impact for the top sites that lost traffic. In our previous reports, Searchmetrics told us that Ask.com was hurt most, losing about 75% or more of their search visibility (not traffic) from Google. It seems like eBay and Google’s venture-backed RetailMeNot also lost a tremendous amount of search visibility, about 50% of their Google impressions.

Before I share the charts with you, RetailMeNot.com has issued a statement saying the reports greatly overstate the impact on RetailMeNot.com. They do admit to ranking changes in Google but say they have diversified their traffic since.

Ask.com Drops ~70% in SEO Visibility

Here is a chart showing Ask.com dropping about 72% in their SEO visibility in Google from Searchmetrics:

eBay.com Drops ~50% in SEO Visibility

Here is a chart showing eBay.com dropping about 48% in their SEO visibility in Google from Searchmetrics:

RetailMeNot.com Drops ~50% in SEO Visibility

Here is a chart showing RetailMeNot.com dropping about 48% in their SEO visibility in Google from Searchmetrics:

As we said in our Panda 4.0 winner and losers story at Search Engine Land.

Only Losers Really Know If They Lost

As we said with the Panda 3.5 Winners & Losers report, lists like this aren’t perfect. The sites above may have had gains and drops for other reasons; less visibility this week because last week they were visible for different news stories, for example.

It’s also worth remembering that this is a sample of search terms. The only way to really know if any update has hurt or helped you is to look at your search-driven traffic from Google, rather than particular rankings or lists like this, which have become popular after Google updates. If you’ve seen a significant increase, you’ve probably been rewarded by it. A big decrease? Then you were probably hit.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.