Google Farmer Update: Who’s really affected? Searchmetrics Suite Blog.

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!

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.

Surprise: ehow.com wins

Visibility: The Organic Performance Index (OPI)

As you may know, following the big media buzz around the JCPenney.comstory 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.

Continues @http://blog.searchmetrics.com/us/2011/03/03/google-farmer-update-whos-really-affected/