Who has benefitted from the fall of Wonga, one of the largest payday loan companies? Read on to see the data, and what has happened to the biggest companies in the sector since the fall of the leader!

1. 1
The decline of
a market leader
Who has benefitted from the fall of

2. 2
InAugust2018,compensationclaimsagainstpaydayorshorttermlenders
skyrocketed.Inadditiontothis,yearsoflendingtocustomerswhowere
forcedtodefaultonloanscametoahead.
Wongaclosedit’sdoorsandstoppedallnewloanapplications.
Soonafter,theformaladministrationprocessbeganandwithindaysthe
biggestnameinpaydayloanscollapsed.
TherewasandstillisnoclearprecedenceonhowGooglewouldreactto
thisnews,old(accessible)sitescansitwithintheSERPsformonths.
First,alittlecontext

3. 3
Ourapproach
We took around1500 keywords thatWonga ranked
wellfor inthecategory ofshort term lending.Over the
last12weeks (since theirclosure announcement)
we’ve watchedthemarketshift.
…thisiswhatwe saw

4. 4
How has the market changed?
Wonga’s announcement and subsequent decline didn’t just
move everyone up a rank, it rocked the industry!
Ifyou’re looking tosee if your site isone ofthose
affected, we’ve made a quick-check tool for you.
CHECK YOUR SITE »

5. 5
Domain No. of Keywords Visibility
wonga.com 1483 128300
quickquid.co.uk 1419 87201
satsumaloans.co.uk 646 71186
drafty.co.uk 612 61486
moneysupermarket.com 492 59823
poundstopocket.co.uk 1022 56892
sunny.co.uk 951 37427
lendingstream.co.uk 520 34831
cashfloat.co.uk 1005 27276
tescobank.com 129 22017
wikipedia.org 280 21903
oakam.com 422 19442
cashlady.com 1094 18642
money.co.uk 870 17165
newhorizons.co.uk 1151 16128
santander.co.uk 73 15013
mrlender.com 185 13525
Domain No. of Keywords Visibility
quickquid.co.uk 1417 135775
poundstopocket.co.uk 1061 75692
moneysupermarket.com 540 62118
satsumaloans.co.uk 673 56253
sunny.co.uk 772 51695
badcreditsite.co.uk 813 45310
lendingstream.co.uk 657 44643
money.co.uk 915 33901
myjar.com 427 32525
drafty.co.uk 635 27621
tescobank.com 194 22405
wikipedia.org 249 22312
loanpig.co.uk 683 16434
cashlady.com 960 16322
cashfloat.co.uk 933 16091
zopa.com 88 15130
unclebuck.co.uk 455 14919
Day of announcement 3 months after

6. 6
“Excuseme,Ican’tseemybrand…”
Don’tpanic,our rankingsarebasedon
positions #0to #40 anditmaybewhyyou’re
notfeatured.Ifyou’d liketoseetheentire
affectedlist-thebelow linkmighthelp.
CHECK YOUR SITE »

7. 7
How does this look over time?
We tracked these keywords every week for 3 months and we’ve
included bubble graphs to help you understand the change.
XAxis: No. of SERP entries (in our keyword set)
YAxis: Estimated clicks or visibility
Size: As above - estimated clicks or visibility

8. 8
Wonga are the clear market
leader but Quickquid are hot
on their heels are naturally
primed to capitalise. The rest
of the market sits in 2 clusters.

9. 9
While Quickquid continue to
close in on Wonga, MSM find
themselves as the 3rd largest
site in terms of visibility.

10. 10
Compared to Week 1 and
excluding Wonga, the top 6
sites are far larger, suggesting
a slightly more equal market
with less of a monopoly.

11. 11
Quickquid now overtake
Wonga as the market leader.
Poundstopocket and Sunny
also continue to grow and
occupy more #1-3 rankings.

12. 12
While Wonga are still ranking
for a large number of
keywords, many of these rank
below position 10. Quickquid
growth causes other sites’
visibility to shrink slightly

13. 13
Many of Wonga’s pages
have been removed or
redirected to their home
page. Aside from £100 and
£500 queries they no longer
rank in traffic zones.

14. 14
Google get’s a little carried
away with Quickquid’s
momentum and they grow to
a point that is larger than
Wonga in Week 1.
Wonga now almost
exclusively rank for the few
branded terms we included
in the keywords. The market
has split into 3 clusters again.

15. 15
Aftershocks from Quickquid’s
growth cause the market to
close up and site’s such as
badcreditsite.co.uk and
sunny.co.uk find themselves
in much stronger positions.

16. 16
While the squeezed middle
battle it out, cashlady is able
to improve their visibility
across their huge keyword.
They are 2nd in the market for
no. of keywords in the top 30.

17. 17
Drafty move into #1 for the
industry’s top 2 non-branded
keywords. MSM stablise their
position as do money.co.uk,
the only other aggregator in
the top 10

18. 18
Drafty suddenly deflate after
ranking in #1 for both payday
loans & short term loans but
now find themselves in #2
and #7 respectively.
No surprises on which site has
stepped into #1 for Drafty’s
previously held top spots.
Once again Quickquid trump
the visibility previously held by
Wonga in their prime.

19. 19
Who were the winners & losers?
The market is made up of more than just 13 sites. In the following
slides we analyse who has seen the greatest % gains and losses.
Ifyou’re looking tosee if your site isincluded then you
can use the tool below tocheck your domain name.
CHECK YOUR SITE »

20. 20
Domain Then Now Change %
badcreditsite.co.uk 10251 45310 35059 342%
118118money.com 344 5824 5480 1593%
myjar.com 11503 32525 21022 183%
loanpig.co.uk 5903 16434 10531 178%
wageme.com 4960 10329 5369 108%
gocompare.com 1046 2385 1339 128%
cashasap.co.uk 1288 2644 1356 105%
money.co.uk 17165 33901 16736 98%
unclebuck.co.uk 8067 14919 6852 85%
ferratum.co.uk 8994 14606 5612 62%
quickquid.co.uk 87201 135775 48574 56%
paydayloansnet.co.uk 5588 7852 2264 41%
cobrapaydayloans.co.uk 7618 10680 3062 40%
sunny.co.uk 37427 51695 14268 38%
finder.com 3437 4743 1306 38%
poundstopocket.co.uk 56892 75692 18800 33%
paydaypixie.co.uk 3487 4499 1012 29%
lendingstream.co.uk 34831 44643 9812 28%
readies.co.uk 2595 3194 599 23%
moneysupermarket.com 59823 62118 2295 4%
Visibility
Winners
118118 timed the release of their loan product
well and they’ve seen a huge % pickup,
however they are still well behind the larger sites
in terms of gross visibility. Lending Stream, MyJar
and Sunny are the popular sites that have
significantly increased their growth.
Badcreditsite have also seen explosive growth,
especially for such a new site. Lending to those
with poor credit, isn’t a great approach and
was deemed to be a critical factor in Wonga’s
demise.
Naturally Quickquid have increased their
visibility to now sit as the leader across this
keyword set. It’s worth noting that all the major
aggregators appeared to benefit too.

21. 21
Domain Then Now Change %
wonga.com 128300 5275 -123025 -96%
oakam.com 19442 2066 -17376 -89%
wizzcash.com 4137 695 -3442 -83%
choosewisely.co.uk 2917 1242 -1675 -57%
drafty.co.uk 61486 27621 -33865 -55%
dotdotloans.co.uk 3789 2067 -1722 -45%
halifax.co.uk 12463 7318 -5145 -41%
cashfloat.co.uk 27276 16091 -11185 -41%
swiftmoney.com 10143 6111 -4032 -40%
mrlender.com 13525 8619 -4906 -36%
newhorizons.co.uk 16128 10467 -5661 -35%
moneysavingexpert.com 12096 8292 -3804 -31%
uswitch.com 2673 1933 -740 -28%
allthelenders.org.uk 4799 3570 -1229 -26%
satsumaloans.co.uk 71186 56253 -14933 -21%
unsecuredloans4u.co.uk 5371 4564 -807 -15%
cashlady.com 18642 16322 -2320 -12%
experian.co.uk 4176 3939 -237 -6%
Visibility
Losers
As with the ‘Winners’, there are a number of
factors that contribute towards a site’s visibility
across a set of keywords. However, across the
same time period as Wonga’s decline these
site’s have shrunk in terms of visibility.
That isn’t to say that the sites have decreased in
overall visibility as this keyword set may not take
into account their brand or specific corner of
the wider market.
Drafty’s reliance on a few high volume
keywords has been the core reason for their
sudden decline. Such fluctuations are common
and hopefully they can bounce back.

22. 22
How did 3rd party tools react?
We all love tools! Here are what two of our favorite tools reported around this time.
• quickquid.co.uk
• poundstopocket.co.uk
• drafty.co.uk
• satsumaloans.co.uk
• sunny.co.uk
• badcreditsite.co.uk
• lendingstream.co.uk
• myjar.com

23. 23
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
Wk 1 Wk 2 Wk 3 Wk 4 Wk 5 Wk 6 Wk 7 Wk 8 Wk 9 Wk 10 Wk 11 Wk 12 Wk 13
quickquid
poundstopocket
drafty
satsumaloans
sunny
badcreditsite
lendingstream
myjar
wonga
Sistrix’s visibility score is one of my favorites, you can see here the
clear drop in visibility as Wonga shrunk back, and some of the other
brands (Quickquid especially) stepped into #1

24. 24
0
50000
100000
150000
200000
250000
300000
350000
400000
450000
September October November
quickquid
poundstopocket
drafty
satsumaloans
sunny
badcreditsite
lendingstream
myjar
wonga
SEMRush’s monthly data provides a view that will likely require Dec
and Jan’s figures to tell us the full story. There is a chance that their
index is more weighted toward branded keywords too.

25. 25
Should you buy wonga.com
Assuming the administrators decide to auction off the domain
name, would it be a smart purchase for competitors?
Ifyou’re looking tosee if your site isincluded then you
can use the tool below tocheck your domain name.
CHECK YOUR SITE »

26. 26
Short answer: No.
Long answer? No…probably not.
Cost
As with everything, the purchase price will be a deciding factor. Given that the administrators
are required to recoup as much money as possible from all assets (including digital) I don’t
expect you’ll see the domain on any standard auction site in the next few months.
Sentiment
Not all of the links to wonga.com were positive, in fact many of them carry a negative sentiment
and when redirected could be harmful to your site or more importantly – your brand. Wonga
was never seen as a ‘force for good’ even by other short term lenders.
Would it even work?
There is no clear precedence for how much of the equity would be passed over, purchasing
other domains is a tactic often employed on much smaller of sites - not the largest site in an
industry. Not only that, but the linking sites may actively remove the link if it’s being used for a
brand they don’t wish to affiliate with.

27. 27
It’s easy to see why (on the surface of things) this site may be may be an attractive purchase.
Especially when you consider dofollow links from bbc.co.uk, nytimes.com, theguardian.com,
forbes.com and techcrunch.com
But when has SEO ever really been simple?

28. 28
CHECK YOUR SITE »
The end!
Open the link, make a copy for
your yourself and pop your
domain in or select it from the list.
PS: If you enjoyed the tool or this report, why not share it around?