Google's new algorithm was supposed to rid the search engine of content farms of scraped sites of useless information, but the move which has promoted quality sites has also killed search rankings for a few legitimate sites, new reports show.
Among the winners, according to Sistrex, were PopEater, Sears and, strangely, eHow.com, a content mill from Demand Media. The losers in Google's new algorithm were mainly scrapers, but Cult of Mac, Gadling and Mahalo.com were also downgraded.
Cult of Mac's Leander Kahney complained about the drop in ranking to Wired, saying, “It seems very unfair, because there’s a lot of [expletive] sites that deserve to be downgraded.”
Update: Wired reports that Cult of Mac's traffic has rebounded, with Kahney telling them, "The site is miraculously back. Everything looks great. I'm wondering if it was you talking to them, but it was back in the index pretty early this AM."
The drop in search ranking had other consequences at Mahalo, where 10 percent of its workforce was laid off because of the drop in traffic, execs told workers. Founder Jason Calacanis said in a statement to employees that the company was rethinking its "freelance content production" but wouldn't stop its current video production.
Google declined to comment on the complaints, but said that sites producing original, high-quality content would likely gain in visibility in the next few weeks.
