Webmasters everywhere cringe as Google releases Panda 4.0

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) recently released the updated Panda 4. This has resulted in many websites either moving up in their ratings, or getting pushed further down. The idea behind Panda is to reward websites that have good quality content, by pushing them more into the limelight. Websites that have poor quality content are supposed to be marginalized, and moved further down the list of Google search engine results.

The way it works is by using ‘searchmetrics’ to continuously monitor websites, and check on their progress, or lack of progress, based on various rankings. This process has been hailed by Forbes magazine as “evolution in action.” The websites that have improved in their rankings have been dubbed winners, and the other as losers.

There are some very famous names on the losers list this time. One of the most surprising is eBay, which has been had a huge drop in traffic from Google. Another big name to get the losing tag is Ask.com, which has shown a big slowdown in the number of people looking for answers there. Research websites have also ended up on the loser’s column, with websites such as Biography.com, and History.com also suffering. Even sites that offer expert advice such as Parenting.com, and LiveScience.com have fallen victim to declining popularity in recent times.

Industry experts say that the winners list also has some surprising results, with some of the websites that have gained in rank, doing so due to factors other than just an increase in their traffic. Sometimes, a particular topic on a website will draw a lot of traffic to the site, making it a winner, however, the overall traffic continues to remain low.