Demand Media responds to Google's content pruning
According to the Wall Street Journal, web publishing giant Demand Media is changing its practices after taking a significant hit from Google's now infamous Panda update.
In a possible sign of things to come, Richard Rosenblatt, Demand Media's Chief Executive, told a press conference last week that the company would be scrapping its user generated content in favour of professionally written articles that will be both longer and higher quality.
Demand Media has been an Internet content success story in recent years, climbing high up the rankings with websites such as popular online how-to guide ehow.com and health and fitness resource livestrong.com.
But the past couple of months have been tough from an SEO perspective, with the company's eHow website suffering a 12% reduction in page views, a 20% drop in search engine referrals and more than a 50% drop in search visibility for its UK homepage.
Many websites, particularly those with large quantities of user generated content, have suffered recently as a result of Google's Panda update. eHow's competitor wisegeek.com reportedly experienced a 74% drop in search visibility, while Microsoft owned consumer review site Ciao.co.uk dropped a massive 94%.
Panda update had 'a real impact'
The Wall Street Journal meanwhile reported that Demand Media's shares had dropped 30% in April as a result of the battering it took from the Panda.
In response to the search engine changes, Mr Rosenblatt said: "This was a real impact to our business, and we take it very seriously."
Announcing the measures that the company would be taking to protect its content from fading into obscurity, Demand Media said that it would be removing large proportions of user-generated content from eHow, and further content would be temporarily taken down to be fact-checked and edited for quality.
These developments will no doubt please the engineers and decision makers at Google. The search engine's latest update has been criticised by some commentators for unfairly punishing some websites. In this case however it would appear to be fulfilling its purpose - encouraging companies to take down low quality content and replace it with material of a higher quality.
Is your web content of a high enough quality to escape the wrath of the Panda? Talk to your SEO Agency to find out more about quality content.
In a possible sign of things to come, Richard Rosenblatt, Demand Media's Chief Executive, told a press conference last week that the company would be scrapping its user generated content in favour of professionally written articles that will be both longer and higher quality.
Demand Media has been an Internet content success story in recent years, climbing high up the rankings with websites such as popular online how-to guide ehow.com and health and fitness resource livestrong.com.
But the past couple of months have been tough from an SEO perspective, with the company's eHow website suffering a 12% reduction in page views, a 20% drop in search engine referrals and more than a 50% drop in search visibility for its UK homepage.
Many websites, particularly those with large quantities of user generated content, have suffered recently as a result of Google's Panda update. eHow's competitor wisegeek.com reportedly experienced a 74% drop in search visibility, while Microsoft owned consumer review site Ciao.co.uk dropped a massive 94%.
Panda update had 'a real impact'
The Wall Street Journal meanwhile reported that Demand Media's shares had dropped 30% in April as a result of the battering it took from the Panda.
In response to the search engine changes, Mr Rosenblatt said: "This was a real impact to our business, and we take it very seriously."
Announcing the measures that the company would be taking to protect its content from fading into obscurity, Demand Media said that it would be removing large proportions of user-generated content from eHow, and further content would be temporarily taken down to be fact-checked and edited for quality.
These developments will no doubt please the engineers and decision makers at Google. The search engine's latest update has been criticised by some commentators for unfairly punishing some websites. In this case however it would appear to be fulfilling its purpose - encouraging companies to take down low quality content and replace it with material of a higher quality.
Is your web content of a high enough quality to escape the wrath of the Panda? Talk to your SEO Agency to find out more about quality content.
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