Winners and Losers in Google's UK Panda Update Far From Black and White

In our last article, we looked at Google's Panda update (also known as the Farmer update), and what it would mean for SEO strategies in the UK when it was rolled out here. Now that day has come, and it seems Panda has inflicted a surprisingly heavy toll on legitimate websites as well as the content farms and scraper sites it was intended to target.

Panda goes live in the UK

The much-anticipated update to Google's page ranking algorithm went live in the UK last Monday, almost two months after its US release. According to Google's Matt Cutts, "[The Panda update] is designed to reduce rankings for low quality sites - sites which are low value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful."

However, in the week since its UK rollout, the blogosphere has been abuzz with stories of how major websites which are generally thought of as high quality have been negatively affected by the update.

Undoubtedly the most dramatic amongst these was the news that Ciao.co.uk, the consumer review website owned by Microsoft, had suffered a 94% drop in visibility after the update. Interestingly, Ciao was at the forefront of an EU investigation into Google, revolving around claims that Google used its dominant market position to suppress rivals. This connection prompted Google's Scott Huffman to comment, "If you think of the scale of what we are talking about, it is almost absurd to say we could rig results."

Hell hath no fury like a panda scorned

According to search analytics company Searchmetrics, other surprising big losers of the update include well-known names ehow.co.uk (>50% loss in search visibility), wisegeek.com (74%) and qype.co.uk (96%). Conversely, eBay.co.uk, national-lottery.co.uk and newspaper websites mirror.co.uk, independent.co.uk and metro.co.uk all made significant gains.

A quick glance at the winners and losers so far suggests that Google is indeed favouring those sites which provide original content that keeps users reading for longer. However, it seems that many seemingly innocent sites which rely on user-generated content are also being scooped up and tossed aside by the Panda's claws.

It remains early days, and Google will inevitably tweak the algorithm further during the coming months. For the moment, the safest strategy for avoiding the Panda's wrath remains the creation of original high value content. And surely that's the way the Internet should be?

If you're worried about the wrath of the Panda and its effects on your visibility, talk to your SEO agency about how you can optimise your site.

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