Google’s Panda update has sent shockwaves through the online industry and it seems that few are safe from its rampage – not even Microsoft.
Ciao, the price comparison and reviews site run by Microsoft, has been pushed down the search rankings as a result of the new algorithm. It lost a massive 94% of its SEO visibility after the Panda update, which seeks to improve the quality of content that’s displayed in the search listings, went live last week.

Ciao is one of many comparison, review and voucher code websites to suffer at the hands of the Panda.

Industry insiders are suggesting that Google’s attack on Ciao will only serve to fuel the fierce rivalry between Google and Microsoft.
Other sites to suffer a setback in the search rankings include Qype, which lost nearly 96% of its SEO visibility, and other notable sites such as Play.com, ehow.co.uk, hotfrog.co.uk and shoppingvouchers.co.uk.

Google as also reduced the visibility of sites that feature a large amount of advertising. There were some success stories in this week’s search rankings, however, with several sites celebrating a big rise in visibility. EBay.co.uk’s visibility increased by 42.1% whilst national-lottery.co.uk enjoyed a 39.5% rise. Other winners included econsultancy.com, this is money.co.uk and metro.co.uk.

Google designed its now infamous Panda update in order to push what it calls high-quality sites further up the search rankings whilst penalising those sites with unoriginal or repetitive content.

Yahoo! is struggling to cope with surging competition from Google and Facebook, with the web portal and search engine facing the prospect of making 1% of its 14,100 workforce redundant – just shortly after announcing 4% cuts in which whole departments were laid off.

Yahoo! was the subject of a failed take-over bid by Microsoft in the third quarter of 2008, and gross revenues have failed to grow from that point. After Yahoo! announced its redundancy plans, the company’s shares fell 4.4% in after-hours trading.

eMarketer, the business information service which analyses US online advertising spending, understood that Yahoo!’s display advertising share decreased last year to 16.2% from 16.5% in 2009 while – in the same period – Facebook accounted for 13.6% of display revenues, an increase from 7.3% in 2009. Yahoo! chief-executive Carol Bartz admitted that the company was not getting the click revenue it had hoped for.

Yahoo!’s current cuts contrast to Google’s fortunes, as the corporation implements an assertive recruitment plan to hire 1,000 new employees in Europe. In the same quarter that Yahoo!’s revenue had decreased by 4%, Google’s revenue had grown 26% to $8.4bn and its profits by 29% to $2.5bn.

Referring to Google’s further fourth-quarter profits of $2.54bn, outgoing chief-executive Eric Schmidt said: “We had a very, very good year and a very strong quarter”.

Ok – so we’re not actually for sale (before we get clients phoning in a panic), unless of course Microsoft wants to come in and offer $40 billion to aquire a thriving web design and consultancy company from Glasgow – the value they placed on Yahoo just last week, when they attempted to buy the web search company.

Their somewhat random offer was actually 62% above the “market value” of Yahoo, based on their share price at the time, a valuation most traditional businesses in the past would have jumped at.  But just how do you value a “Web Company”…  It’s certainly not an easy task, and (as MS have shown) not just down to the current stock market trends.

 So… will we see a MSNahoo?  Or will (as many as speculating) Google suddenly appear as a rival bidder.  And what will it all mean for us web users?  Less choice?  A better service?  Only time will tell…

Ps – I was only kidding about selling NSDesign for $40 billion…  I’d take less..