Robin Good: This is pretty interesting.
“Given the fact that Google updates impacted at maximum 12-13 percent of U.S. searches, how is it that 40 percent of SEOs and website owners are reporting an impact?”
How is the overall impact of a Google Panda or Penguin update/data refresh measured, beyond Google’s own numbers?
PM Digital’s Clay Cazier proposes a method of measurement using Google Organic Click Turbulence and invites SEOs to participate.
"The purpose of his research was to determine whether Panda and Penguin actually had the negative impact reported by SEOs. Early in 2012, digital marketers were surveyed to determine which of Google’s search changes had affected their business. Fifty-four percent voted for Panda. In May, 65 percent of SEOs reported less traffic after April’s Penguin update.
Do opinion-based surveys reveal the true state of search after an algorithm change, though?"
...
Here is the hot take:
"This fear and doubt Google has put into organic with these updates has certainly resulted in increases in paid activity.
There may be an echo-chamber effect, where activity in forums and on blogs results in decision-makers moving budget to paid”
This is what most Savvy SEO's and webmasters have been saying all along. It has nothing to do with fear and uncertainty. Google pushed out the quality sites specifically to get the site owners to pay for clicks.
If you can afford to pay an SEO top dollar and afford to pay for premium content, you can afford to pay Google for clicks. If Google takes your $100,000 investment and pushes it to page 3 of results you are left with only one thing to do, pay for clicks."
Tom Foremski was right: http://googlepanda.masternewmedia.org/p/844989047/panda-is-not-an-accident-google-business-strategy-is-to-go-against-the-small-independent-publishers-zdnet
Read the full article here: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2216573/Google-Panda-Penguin-A-New-Way-for-SEOs-to-Measure-True-Impact
(Thanks to Giuseppe Mauriello for suggesting this article)