While most discussion of the Jagger update seems to focus on speculations about algorithms and changes to SERPs — after all, SERPs can be verified at a glance — a more important impact appears to be the influence Jagger is having on traffic flow to major sites which had been employing web spamming techniques to boost their search engine popularity.

Drawing on data from third party trackers like Alexa, we’ve noticed a very discernible drop in traffic figures occurring throughout November at a range of sites which we monitor, across several different market segments. In many cases, we suspected or even knew these sites to be employing web spamming techniques to boost their search engine popularity, and we’ve been amazed that the major search engines seemed oblivious to the wool being pulled over their eyes. Now that we’re seeing many of these sites get their comeuppance, apparently via the Jagger update, we’re pretty ecstatic about seeing those sites take a pummelling while our own content-focused sites continue to grow in popularity — perhaps absorbing some of that traffic previously being directed to the spam-supported sites. (AffiliateInsight.com is itself quite a young site, and we’re only now beginning a slow curve of organic growth, but looking at some of our other sites, we’ve seen some truly remarkable changes subsequent to the Jagger update.)

So, as has been the case over and over again in the past, the web spammers enjoy a significant but temporary boost to traffic, while the sites offering quality content continue to grow steadily. We know for sure which camp we’d prefer to be in. How about you?

If you haven’t yet checked what’s been happening to your competitors’ traffic since the Jagger update, now’s the time to do it!