Amazing -- Answers.com issues a press release to advise investor that traffic from Google has dropped 28 percent last week due to an algorithm change. Various issues! (1) Apparently those direct definition links don’t bring in much traffic since the release says that 70 percent of the site’s total traffic comes from people reaching them directly or searching for "dictionary" (which explains the planned purchase of Dictionary.com even more). (2) Don’t build your business to be so dependent on search traffic! (3) What Google algorithm change last week? I don’t recall wide reports of this -- instead, was Answers.com itself hit?
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11 Comments
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"We are working diligently to analyze and address the recent algorithm change," said Bob Rosenschein, CEO." Maybe he is referring to a possible data push during last week ;-)
Imagine the day when Wiki releases the same.
hmmmm remember squidoo :)
http://searchengineland.com/070803-083203.php is a longer write-up I’ve done now.
I’ll do the happy dance when Wiki and about.com issues the same thing.
That press release definitely qualifies as the silliest thing I’ve read all week.
Makes me think how much do investors understand where they put their money ? Relying on search engine traffic, even worse only on Google with this size of a business is pretty risky in my opinion . What if Google pulls a "John Chow" on Answers.com or Dictionary.com ? Diversifying traffic sources is a must in building a successful (long term and stable!) online business .
One way to look at it is that while Answers.com had received a ton of traffic from natural rankings, they couldn’t apparently didn’t convert that traffic into regular (repeat) users of their product. It’s interesting that they’d admit all of this publicly. I suppose they had to, being a public company..
I have seen the same trend on many very large websites taking a hit recently (not just the past week). I have my theories for why and working on solutions :) But to issue a press release about it - how stupid is that?
I use answers all the time. It is the best site to lookup definitions or anything. For a while there they were doing really well in Google.
I guess it is up to an investor to ask "What Google algorithm change last week?" I’d love to know their answer and proof to back it up.