Demand Media announced that eHow’s traffic experienced a decline, but that the company believes this “is temporary and was the result of an internal technical issue.”
“The technical issue has recently been remediated,” the company said, indicating this was not Panda-related. According to Business Insider, citing a “source familiar with the situation,” eHow’s traffic is already on the mend since the glitch was fixed.
The incident evidently had a negative effect on the company’s stock, but today, it’s on the way up. At the time of this writing, it’s up +0.19 at 5.83.
As you may know, over the last couple weeks, the company told writers it would be making less assignments available, and a new program called “First Look” was announced. This gives its highest rated writers first dibs on writing assignments.
Both moves are extensions of the company’s broader eHow clean-up initiative, which was revealed earlier this year. At last count, the company had deleted 300,000 articles. They also implemented a user feedback system designed to help them improve articles when the response is negative.
Demand has told us that it’s pleased with the progress of the clean-up initiative. We should hear more about all of this and its progress when the company has its earnings call next month.
Demand Media will report its third quarter earnings on November 7.