• All Things Digital, Monday, April 18, 2011 12:03 PM

Despite reports to the contrary, Demand Media insists that Google's latest algorithm change has had no material impact on its business.  In a statement, the eHow.com owner said: "Certain third parties that have published reports attempting to estimate the effect of recent search engine algorithm changes made by Google on traffic to [Demand's] owned and operated Web sites have significantly overstated the negative impact of those changes on traffic to eHow.com."

Demand has declined to "give specific details about the impact of Google's attempt to clean up its search results by tweaking its algorithms to cut out poorly made material from so-called ‘content farms,'" writes BoomTown. A recent poll by SEO firm Sistrix suggested that eHow was indeed hurt badly by Google's latest algorithm change, which was codenamed "Panda." Writes Search Engine Land: "As we reported over the weekend, a measurement from Sistrix says eHow.com suffered a 66% decline in Sistrix's Visibility Index."

"Of course Demand Media is going to say that everything is fine," writes Business Insider. "Whatever their traffic is doing right now, the real lesson here is that they're dependent on Google." What's the likely impact on Demand's bottom line? "Stifel Nicolaus' Jordan Rohan says in a report ... the overall impact is likely ‘less than $10 million in revenues in 2011,'" paidContent reports. "To put that figure in perspective, analysts estimate that Demand Media will report $311 million in sales this year."

CNet, meanwhile, conducted its own research in the matter after compiling nearly 100,000 results by testing Google.com in March and again last Friday after the most recent alterations took effect. "According to our rankings ... Fox News moved up from the No. 89 spot to No. 23. ABC News had a similarly impressive uptick, and ESPN, The New York Times, and Yahoo News became more visible as well," CNet writes.

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