The power of SEO should not be underestimated.

Google had a recent re-shuffle of results; thought to be an impact of Google de-valuing the worth of “paid for back-links”.
This is a good step in our eyes; links which are paid for should not have an impact on “natural results”.

The effect of this reshuffle on 2 of the UK’s most valuable internet properties; MoneySupermarket.com and Confused.com has been nothing short of catastrophic.

Moneysupermarket was due for a stock floatation valuing £1billion – this has been severely hit by the Google re-shuffle with its listings for keywords such as “loans” & “Car insurance” moving from the top 10 to 50+. While this appears to be a temporary glitch as they have resurfaced to the top, the financial impact of the down time has been massive.

Confused.com seems to have had a similar problem with an added issue of duplicate content (confused.co.uk). All this coming just as they were due to sell for £700million. While Moneysupermarket seem to have recovered, Confused.com has not with its listings moving out of the top 50 results and staying put.

The moral of the story has to be: Ignore the value of good SEO at your peril. SEO is not just about getting results today or this month but about sustained and ethical results which last.