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Google Farmer Update: Who’s really affected?

By Marcus Tober

In a major update Google changed its algorithm last Thursday to tune down content-farms. Nearly 12% of all search results on google.com were affected. One thing is almost certain: this was an algorithmic update!

farmer-update

Here at Searchmetrics we gather a lot of data from the Web. Over 55 million domains and 25 million keywords are continuously monitored, and all this data is then analyzed on a weekly and monthly basis. Over the last week, we’ve been intensely tracking the recent “Google Farmer Update” and algorithm changes to see what effects it is really having.

Überraschung: ehow.com hat gewonnen
Surprise: ehow.com wins

Visibility: The Organic Performance Index (OPI)

As you may know, following the big media buzz around the JCPenney.com story in the New York Times, on 2/24/11 Google made some changes to its search algorithms to try and stem the ever-increasing presence of farmed content on the search engines results pages (SERPs). Being touted as the “Farmer Update”, Google has noted that this change has noticeably impacted 11.8% of their queries.

For purposes of this analysis, we used our own Organic Performance Index (OPI), which is calculated according to a keyword’s search volume, position and the statistical value of traffic distribution.

While speculators are calling this the “anti-Media” update and content heavy websites are quickly trying to pass themselves off as “anti-OnDemand Media sites” one site, eHow, is actually benefiting. Originally being fingered as a site that would be impacted by this update, eHow has actually gained 14% in visibility in the days following the change.

With its nearly 80% increase, the biggest winner in terms of traffic and percentage change is wikihow.com. A remarkable increase considering that in contrast to Wikipedia, wikiwho.com appears to be a classic definition of a content farm. Similarly, Yahoo! Answers experienced an almost 30% increase, in contrast to answers.com and answerbag.com, a site that experienced an almost 60% loss. Statistics such as these are clear indicators that the update must indeed be algorithm-based, fully automated and not carried out manually.

The results displayed are from data that we gathered between the 02/22/2011 and the 03/01/2011.

We analyzed 39 so-called “content farm” domains. We also looked at reputable, content heavy sites such as Facebook and the Huffington Post for comparative purposes. Overall, there was a 57% average drop in our OPI.

(Click on thumbnails to enlarge)

The biggest losers in percentage were:

Suite101.com hat 92.5% verloren
Suite101.com lost 92.5%
blippr.com
blippr.com
helium.com
helium.com
suite101_us
suite101.com
tradekey.com_us
tradekey.com
articlesbase.com
articlesbase.com

associatedcontent.com
associatedcontent.com
Domain OPI_today OPI_last Difference %
blippr.com 11,024 529,970 -518,946 -97.9%
suite101.com 19,874 263,529 -243,655 -92.5%
tradekey.com 2,970 38,237 -35,267 -92.2%
associatedcontent.com 23,687 281,343 -257,656 -91.6%
articlesbase.com 13,492 157,958 -144,466 -91.5%
helium.com 7,170 83,184 -76,014 -91.4%
faqs.org 15,971 140,951 -124,980 -88.7%
freedownloadscenter.com 23,216 192,128 -168,912 -87.9%
mahalo.com 56,305 442,563 -386,258 -87.3%
allbusiness.com 2,694 19,995 -17,301 -86.5%
ezinearticles.com 35,691 259,516 -223,825 -86.2%
essortment.com 13,507 93,993 -80,486 -85.6%
americantowns.com 6,109 38,783 -32,674 -84.2%
findarticles.com 11,648 70,404 -58,756 -83.5%
howtodothings.com 10,605 62,372 -51,767 -83.0%
lovetoknow.com 30,289 157,037 -126,748 -80.7%
hubpages.com 122,796 618,406 -495,610 -80.1%
wisegeek.com 113,436 489,014 -375,578 -76.8%
buzzle.com 78,206 335,304 -257,098 -76.7%
doityourself.com 8,069 33,231 -25,162 -75.7%
merchantcircle.com 20,195 83,133 -62,938 -75.7%
business.com 10,961 42,877 -31,916 -74.4%
thefind.com 13,107 46,769 -33,662 -72.0%
trails.com 9,607 32,385 -22,778 -70.3%

Download all data in Excel-format.

The biggest losers in terms of absolute visibility were:

answers.com gehört zu den Verlierern
answers.com is one of the biggest losers
answerbag.com
answerbag.com
answers.com
answers.com
about.com
about.com

 

maholo.com
maholo.com
wisegeek.com
wisegeek.com

buzzle.com
buzzle.com
Domain OPI_today OPI_last Difference %
answerbag.com 662,274 1,673,406 -1,011,132 -60.4%
answers.com 682,274 1,673,410 -991,136 -59.2%
blippr.com 11,024 529,970 -518,946 -97.9%
hubpages.com 122,796 618,406 -495,610 -80.1%
about.com 3,199,369 3,689,144 -489,775 -13.3%
mahalo.com 56,305 442,563 -386,258 -87.3%
wisegeek.com 113,436 489,014 -375,578 -76.8%
associatedcontent.com 23,687 281,343 -257,656 -91.6%
buzzle.com 78,206 335,304 -257,098 -76.7%
suite101.com 19,874 263,529 -243,655 -92.5%
ezinearticles.com 35,691 259,516 -223,825 -86.2%
freedownloadscenter.com 23,216 192,128 -168,912 -87.9%
articlesbase.com 13,492 157,958 -144,466 -91.5%
lovetoknow.com 30,289 157,037 -126,748 -80.7%
faqs.org 15,971 140,951 -124,980 -88.7%
examiner.com 43,101 142,296 -99,195 -69.7%
essortment.com 13,507 93,993 -80,486 -85.6%
helium.com 7,170 83,184 -76,014 -91.4%
merchantcircle.com 20,195 83,133 -62,938 -75.7%
ask-leo.com 57,140 117,708 -60,568 -51.5%
findarticles.com 11,648 70,404 -58.756 -83.5%
livestrong.com 34,554 87,086 -52,532 -60.3%
howtodothings.com 10,605 62,372 -51,767 -83.0%
tradekey.com 2,970 38,237 -35,267 -92.2%

 

Winner were:

instructables.com
instructables.com
howstuffworks.com
howstuffworks.com
wikihow.com_us
wikihow.com
answers.yahoo.com
answers.yahoo.com
ehow-com
ehow.com

huffingtonpost.com
huffingtonpost.com
Domain OPI_today OPI_last Difference %
wikihow.com 455,031 254,087 200,944 79.1%
answers.yahoo.com 524,056 406,523 117,533 28.9%
ehow.com 944,950 831,961 112,989 13.6%
howstuffworks.com 666,073 574,523 91,550 15.9%
huffingtonpost.com 1,262,562 1,173,229 89,333 7.6%
facebook.com 3,157,406 3,094,804 62,602 2.0%
instructables.com 80,142 68,685 11,457 16.7%

 

Who are the winners if the content farms are the losers?

It’s very hard to categorize the winners and losers. Obviously, it’s similiar to the Mayday update from last year where we saw that the loss of visibility was spread around a large number of different types of domains. Nevertheless, there are winners, notably the news portals like msn.com, mashable.com, zdnet.com and wired.com.

So Far, only US Google.com searches are affected

hubpages_uk
hubpages.com in co.uk
mahalo.com in co.uk
mahalo.com in co.uk

An analysis of similar domains with a .co.uk extension on google.co.uk index showed that there was an overall slight increase in traffic. Thus, as of yet, the update is only really effective on google.com and still has to swap over to Europe. However, the UK counterparts of domains like hubpages.com or mahalo.com should be prepared to see changes.

Now what to do?

Although eHow.com has always been taken as an example of industrial low-value content, they have actually gained visibility following this update. While the content may be of questionable value, like how to buy a teddy bear, user criteria such as bounce rates, visit duration, and social reach, for example, have obviously been part of the quality guidelines of the update. We also believe that if pages that are genuinely visually attractive to a user, the page will be spared by the Farmer Update.  Meaning  that  ranking is going to come down to how a user values a page, as opposed to just what content is on it.

Was Demand Media really not affected?

answerbag.com
answerbag.com
livestrong.com
livestrong.com

Some still question whether Demand Media has in fact been affected by the Farmer Update. In looking at popular Demand Media sites livestrong.com and answerbag.com, we think the answer is loud and clear.

 

Here at Searchmetrics we gather a lot of data from the Web. Over 55 million domains and 25 million keywords are continuously monitored, and all this data is then analyzed on a weekly and monthly basis. Over the last week, we’ve been intensely tracking the recent “Google Farmer Update” and algorithm changes to see what effects it is really having.
Marcus Tober

Marcus Tober

My name is Marcus Tober and I’m the founder of Searchmetrics. Because we really love to analyze all kinds of online data, we can give you more insights than any other company in SEO, SEM and Social Media. It’s not a job, it’s passion.

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