Mahalo cuts workforce by 10% after Google algorithm change drops traffic, report says

[The Straight Story]

Mahalo, a Santa Monica-based education website, has reportedly cut 10% of its employees.

In a recent e-mail to employees, company founder and CEO Jason Calacanis and Mahalo President Jason Rapp said the start-up trimmed a tenth of its workforce due to a reduction in traffic caused by Google's change to its search algorithm, according to the blog CenterNetworks.

The Google changes were meant to push down low-quality sites in search results, but some unexpected websites such as Mahalo lost their ranking as well, the report said. With less traffic visiting Mahalo, revenue took a hit, the e-mail said, according to CenterNetworks.


Google officials were unavailable to comment on the report on Wednesday.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/03/mahalo-cuts-workforce-by-10-after-traffic-dip-from-google-algorithm-changes-report-says.html

[Amerigo Vespucci]

1. Google's new algorithm doesn't weed out garbage sites...

...it weeds out sites the new algorithm defines as garbage. That's not necessarily the same thing, and Google knows it.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Is it better than it was before...content farms really do suck

[Shagbark Hickory]

3. Uh Oh. It's starting.