Right let’s not dilly dally then, you want to know who has come out shining this week in natural search and who should be feeling a bit down in the dumps. Lucky for you we have everything you need. Enjoy.
WINNERS
It’s been a volatile year for Merriam Webster’s visibility all while operating in an extremely competitive industry. Evidentially hit by a Panda based penalty in August of 2015, the site was quick to recover but rankings began to slip. This recent boost does not follow recent trends and it will be interesting to see if the site can maintain its edge.
Extremely popular buying and selling site gumtree.com has seen a gradual loss in visibility throughout 2015 with a more prevalent (most likely technical) drop in October. In more recent weeks, the site appears to have engaged in minor link clean-up activities which may have resulted in the recent boost.
Upward shifts to page one for Nicki Minaj and Beyonce’s artist pages have caused a big boost in overall visibility for mtv.com. Other artist pages have also seen boosts which suggests an expansion of content.
LOSERS
Formerly ‘Rap Genius’, the site was the subject of a 2013 Penguin scandal whereby the site’s owners openly admitted to a search results manipulating link scheme programme. Genius.com allows its users to upload and share song lyrics and their interpretations. The domain seemingly launched in late summer 2014 and quickly gained organic visibility.
A Panda penalty in October 2014 meant the site has spent 2015 building a firm organic profile. This recent drop could be the result of a renewed penalty.
Boasting an extremely volatile visibility profile, trainline-europe.com yet again makes an appearance in our SEO Battleground. This stems from the site dropping in and out of rankings for journey specific terms, but predominantly the constant jostling it experiences for brand terms.
Watchepisodes.tv
It almost wouldn’t be Battleground day if there wasn’t an illegal streaming site on the list. Watchepisodes.tv has only appeared on Google over the last month and has quickly departed. The site appears to be mirrored on watchepisodes.com, likely an attempt to keep the site alive as the .tv domain takes a banning.
That’s all for this week. This data is bought to you courtesy of the searchmetrics tool.