Google’s Panda update has affected New York Times Co. owned About.com, the company confirmed during its Q1 2011 earnings conference call.
“Design changes in cost-per-click advertisements served by Google had a negative effect on click through rates in the quarter, and we expect that to be the case through the second quarter as well,” said Janet Robinson, president and CEO. “About also experienced a moderately negative impact on page views from the algorithm changes Google implemented in the quarter.”
Forbes estimates that About.com accounts for 14 percent of the New York Times Co.’s stock value.
This confirms a Searchmetrics report that About.com was a search visibility loser when Google’s Panda update initially hit the U.S and the UK.
By contrast, some Hitwise Experian Data sent to Search Engine Watch earlier this week compared downstream traffic from Google from Jan. 8 to April 23 for various sites and showed that About.com had actually increased by 30 percent.
We’ll have to investigate further.