Who Gained From Google’s Search Algorithm Change?

Demand Media

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) had said that the big change it made to its search algorithm two weeks ago was designed not only to reduce the rankings of low-quality sites but also to boost the rankings of sites with “original content” and that apparently is indeed what is happening. Outbrain, which provides publishers a way to add related links from their own site and third-party sites to articles, and counts publishers including USA Today, iVillage, and Slate among its customers, says its clients have seen a big increase in traffic from Google since the changes were put into place.

In a blog post (via NYTimes) the company says publications in its “premium publisher network” — which includes 91 sites — overall saw a 48 percent increase in search traffic over the last two weeks.

The company notes even bigger percentage increases in Google search traffic to entertainment, sports and tech content — and says that local sports content and entertainment content, which presumably is more likely to be original, did particularly well.

It still may be too early to jump to any conclusions, however, since the ranking of Google search results is apparently still changing much more than had been typical in the past. (Our Google traffic, by the way, hasn’t changed very much over the last few weeks).

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