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Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

750 points by cyrusshepard 7y ago

Arrezz 7y ago
There seems to be an increasing problem with automated content filtering systems that filter out legitimate actors. This seems like a very broad problem that is hard to generalize, but perhaps I'm wrong. It also seems like the problem will only get worse as the Internet grows even larger. I wonder what the end result will look like, if this will just magnify the effect of walled gardens.
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  Google is trying to be non-partisan, so that they can have their algorithms continue to do all of the work. They delegate “what is true” to trusted sources rather than taking a position themselves, which is then frequently abused by wiki editors and crowd swarm attacks. Recognizing correctness over both reputation and quality is not something an algorithm can evaluate with finality, and is an aspect of the old Yahoo! Directory that Google has never been able to replace. Google will continue to worsen at any search for which one possible reply is snake oil, because they continue to refuse to apply human reasoning and make biased judgements for and/or against the claims of the sites they index. This will eventually be the end of Google, but they seem unwilling to confront it.
pascalxus 7y ago
I've noticed that Google search results prioritize reputation above search matching. If you search for something, even if there's a blog out there with the exact thing your searching for, it won't show up, even in the top 100 search results, unless the site has a high enough page rank/ or some other generic metric google is looking for. This is unfortunate because there's a lot of great information out there that never sees the light of day due to this problem. Google still has a long way to go before they solve the search problem.
- duxup 7y ago
  Yeah that seems to give rise to sites like Medium where folks post because they know they'll get seen. Even people who are fairly high profile for the given topic. Considering the risk of that data getting locked away behind paywalls that doesn't seem good.
- new_guy 7y ago
  > Google still has a long way to go before they solve the search problem For any search query, there's only two results: 1, what you're actually looking for 2, what Google wants you to see Unfortunately Google has 'solved' the search problem by always optimising for 2, and most times it's never what you want to see. That's not just health results either, for most anything outside of 'pop culture' Google is garbage.
  - thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
    Sounds like we need a new search engine, a better search engine. One that returns the things you're actually searching for.
    - zentiggr 7y ago
      Duckduckgo?
      - abugheratwork 7y ago
        Isn't that just a wrapper for the same search engines?
        limejuice 7y ago
        I believe duckduckgo uses bing for search results. (See https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1 https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1). If you compare searches on bing and duckduckgo, they are very similar. The main advantage of duckduckgo is that they aren't tracking you and the ads they show are just based on the search keywords not based on a digital profile they have compiled like google and facebook.
nesadi 7y ago
This is tragic. Examine.com is probably the best site I know with a focus on determining the science behind any food or supplement one might be interested in. They should be at the top of every Google search.
- andrekandre 7y ago
  isn’t this one of the classic reasons monopolies are bad? [edit] please let me clarify the reason i wrote the above is because examine.com basically has no recourse but to appeal to google since they are basically a monopoly in search results, which is one of the reasons people consider a monopoly to be bad... they can’t just “pay more to bing” and get all their lost traffic back can they?
  - anchpop 7y ago
    No, it isn't
    - andrekandre 7y ago
      why? (genuinely curious)
  - nesadi 7y ago
    You're right, yes. It seems search is one of those winner-take-all markets where the data Google has ensures that they'll stay years ahead of everybody else. With 92% of the global search market (https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share), that gives them an incredible amount of power and influence over countless business and people. And they've repeatedly shown little regard for casualties of their policies or the Algorithm.
cyrusshepard 7y ago
For additional context, Google has "disappeared" 100s of alt-health sites - some bad, but some very good. The site Self Hacked was one, and detailed it here: https://selfhacked.com/blog/google-censorship-of-health-websites-is-taken-to-the-next-level/ https://selfhacked.com/blog/google-censorship-of-health-webs... Some, like Mercola, peddle highly-controversial, near anti-vax content. But on the other end of the spectrum, Examine.com should be the gold standard. Quality Raters should use it as an example of a site to emmulate. Much higher quality content and informative content than WebMD, IMO.
- nadezhda18 7y ago
  Many similar websites have suffered from a so-called "Medic" update. Some of them recovered (through fixing their website), some did not. The SEO community is full of such stories, for more than a year I think. How is it news? :thinking:
  - tyingq 7y ago
    "How is it news?" Recently piqued interest in antitrust actions for companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  I’m very happy to hear about mercola being disappearing. It always rank so highly for so many terms, with complete nutjob advice.
  - scottlocklin 7y ago
    When I google for astaxanthin, the suggestion in the original post, Mercola ranks higher than Examine. Which is bloody tragic, as examine gives legit information. Someone at Google doesn't like them.
    - helij 7y ago
      Nah, it's not that someone at Google doesn't like them. Mercola is much more 'SEO'ed' than Examine.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
oarabbus_ 7y ago
Google has also made disappear "harm reduction" drug-related websites, such as Drugs-Forum.com on relevant searches; IMO, a travesty and an affront to "Don't be Evil"
- acollins1331 7y ago
  Pretty sure they dropped the don't be evil moniker when they decided to go full steam ahead with evil
  - blobster 7y ago
    They changed it with "Do the right thing", which is equivalent to saying "Evil is sometimes the right thing"
    - tester233 7y ago
      https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ "And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"
      - blobster 7y ago
        https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393 https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...
    - SquareWheel 7y ago
      Alphabet adopted the motto "Do the right thing". Google still has the motto "Don't be evil". Both are in their respective codes of conducts.
  - tester233 7y ago
    https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ "And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"
LinuxBender 7y ago
I find this concerning. I use examine.com quite a bit. They have references to all the studies for each topic whereas other health sites like webmd do not always have reference links. Examine have saved me a bit of time trying to search through all the studies on nih.gov / PubMed. I still do manual searches to ensure they are not cherry picking, but I have been happy with Examine thus far.
- PasserBy2024 7y ago
  duck.com
DidISayTooMuch 7y ago
My website has a number of articles that talk about anxiety health issues. I was getting steady traffic of at least 100-150 users per day. Now I get about 10/day. The traffic didn't gradually slow down. It dropped by almost > 50% on two separate days and continued that trend. No idea what is going on. My DR has also dropped on ahrefs. I am nowhere near examine.com, but my articles are honest and of good quality I believe. I am on the first page of DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, and Bing for my keywords. I'm on page > 10 on Google for the same keywords.
- sharedfrog 7y ago
  Can we get a link to your website?
ve55 7y ago
>Let’s be clear: Google owes us nothing. They are a private organization, they can do whatever they want. This is a surprising thing to hear. I think given Google's influence, they owe them at least some fairness.
- thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
  And, as an entity more powerful than any living thing on this planet (with the power to kill or support nearly any online business), they owe the world quite a bit of fairness: Otherwise, they can watch as their search business drops to nothing overnight. Facebook and Amazon and most B2Bs have quite a bit of lock in. But google, if they piss everyone off, we'll we're just one tab away from using something else: and once people realize that something else is equal or better, it's all over for G. I switched to duck duck go a few months ago for search and the cost of switching was Zero.
  - root_axis 7y ago
    > with the power to kill or support nearly any online business Absolutely untrue. Almost every startup I've worked for considered search traffic to be negligible. I've also worked at a place where google traffic accounted for 70% of sales and they actually went out of businesses a few months after we dropped off the front-page, but there is no inherent reason why our company deserved the top spot any more than those that replaced us on the front-page.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    > And, as an entity more powerful than any living thing on this planet (with the power to kill or support nearly any online business), they owe the world quite a bit of fairness: Otherwise, they can watch as their search business drops to nothing overnight. So are they powerful or aren't they? How can they be so powerful if they are one night away from ruin?
  - JimWestergren 7y ago
    There is another more effective way to kill Google if they would turn evil. It just takes a number of the biggest and most important websites such as wikipedia, newspapers, stackoverflow and so on to block google in the robots.txt. Users will then think Google is broken because those websites are missing and use another search engine.
adrr 7y ago
I'd move off Cloudflare. Cloudflare hosts a bunch of sites that are penalized by google. Google is known to penalized sites in bad neighborhoods. Spend the money and get dedicated IPs and don't share certs. Examine.com is sharing a cert with an online gambling site(reengame.com).
- duskwuff 7y ago
  Cloudflare is hardly an obscure service. I'm confident that Google's search quality team is aware that Cloudflare exists, and that they have taken steps to avoid penalizing sites for using it.
  - ianhawes 7y ago
    I thought that as well. Totally anecdotal, but after switching off of CloudFlare and onto a dedicated IP, our rankings increased within 2 weeks. We track algorithm changes through SEMRush, who did not report an algo change around the time the rankings increased. In addition, we actually saw an increase in page load times because the assets were no longer being served via CDN.
  - adrr 7y ago
    https://serverguy.com/case-study/cloudflare-seo/ https://serverguy.com/case-study/cloudflare-seo/ . It is well known in the SEO arena that your neighbors affect your SERPS. Cloudflare has an open policy on who they allow on their service where AWS, Akmai, Fastly, etc have acceptable use policies banning services like online gambling, online pharmancies, etc. Google doesn't release any information about how they rank sites but it is reasonable to assume there is a network/IP reputation score similar to what email providers use to combat spam.
    - segfaultbuserr 7y ago
      Interesting. I know CloudFlare's neural policy but never thought about its effects on ranking. It explains a lot.
- AhmedF 7y ago
darawk 7y ago
I was going to say that "examine.com is one of the best sites on the internet for information about supplements/nutrition". But it's not. It's the best site on the internet for that sort of thing. It's great that Google is attempting to fix the issue of bullshit nutrition sites ranking highly, but I sincerely hope someone at Google sees this and does something to help out Examine, which is a tremendous resource.
- AhmedF 7y ago
  Thank you!
- sambroner 7y ago
  Do you buy their guides or use it to individually research compounds? It doesn't appear to be much different than other health websites, except they sell guides, which may change the incentive structure away from marketing and towards research.
  - AhmedF 7y ago
    > It doesn't appear to be much different than other health websites We go faaaaaaaaar more in-depth. Eg collating human in-vivo research: https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#effect-matrix https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#effect-matrix Summarizing body of research: https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#scientific-research https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#scientific-researc... We sell information because that keeps us on our mission - to analyze health research. Our primary driver is a monthly subscription utilized by professionals that breaks down the latest nutrition research. Here's a preview if you want to see how in-depth we go: https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8e.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/erd/sneakpeek.pdf https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8...
  - swtrs 7y ago
    Its a bit like wikipedia, it doesnt look like much initially but going in with purpose shows you just how much more in depth they are. Examine also updates their research regularly, that alone puts them above "any old health site"
Endy 7y ago
There's a very cynical part of me that is considering whether this might be a planned action by Google to cycle the FP, and try to get the "disappeared" sites to pay Google for pay-per-click advertising. I wish that was completely unbelievable, but Google has proven to be entirely focused on profit when it comes to monetizing search; and of course intentionally starving sites from getting hits/leads/conversions seems like the best and fastest way to generate profit from their desperation.
- puranjay 7y ago
  But it has only impacted sites in the health niche. There's a lot of really bad advice and information being circulated in this niche. The antivax insanity didn't just spring out of nothingness. I run a site that covers musical equipment (I'm an amateur musician) and my rankings have been stable for over a year with almost zero work.
  - Endy 7y ago
    Again, the cynical response is, "for now". When they get past this stage where they're doing the most obvious thing that's probably more good than harmful, how long before they say that they're working with musical industry leaders, so they'll emphasize on what the labels say is good equipment.
    - puranjay 7y ago
      At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut, I've seen some things on YouTube that point in that direction. Some random new creators have suddenly amassed millions of views and over a million subscribers with as few as 5 mediocre videos. These creators have either found some way to game the YouTube algorithm, or they have been created by YouTube (or other media giants like Disney) and promoted heavily across organic channels in an attempt to create the kind of stars (that media companies can control) you see, say, on Disney Kids. It's becoming clear to me that as we enter the fourth decade of the internet, the open, democratic nature of the internet is under siege.
  - Ayraa 7y ago
bad_user 7y ago
The folks at Examine.com should also analyze what inbound links they have scattered on the web. An easy way to sink your competition is to place their links on shady websites. It's common SEO practice.
- DidISayTooMuch 7y ago
  Are you talking about negative SEO attacks?
- adrr 7y ago
  I thought google got rid of the disavow feature and no longer penalize on the quality of inbound links?
  - dodobirdlord 7y ago
    Doesn't seem to be the case. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main?pli=1 https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main?p...
nabnob 7y ago
It seems like Google is de-ranking independent websites, rather than actually analyzing whether a website provides good information or not. I'm not sure that this is happening intentionally - it's probably way more difficult to figure out a way to automate a "quality of information" rating, rather than just prioritizing websites for companies that make lots of money. However, this has the unintended effect of narrowing the overton window for "acceptable" opinions. I've found that it's really difficult to find good results for niche topics on Google nowadays.
- dannyw 7y ago
  This is almost certainly what happened. Search YouTube for any political subject and you will only see videos from channels with a check. It’s just a dumb hard boost, on a hand selected list of authoritative channels. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Google change is essentially the same, just without the visible check marks.
CryoLogic 7y ago
If we are banning sketchy medicine sites could we ban healthline and webmd? Those websites use scare tactics to push users through 10+ page "top 10 illnesses based on your symptoms" list which are often not even researched to the point of any accuracy and only written to drive ad revenue.
qwerty456127 7y ago
I never knew examine.com and now I've taken a look. I've found a lot of pieces of information which are, as far as I know, legitimate and good to know.
gildas 7y ago
Even though your website serves static pages, I don't think that's a good idea to hide all the contents when JavaScript is disabled... I'm surprised the "SEO analysts" did not notice that.
fluidcruft 7y ago
Are there any curated directories left? It seems like they were all killed off by search, but this sort of thing underscores that curation itself actually has value.
maxander 7y ago
I wonder if the issue is liability- people suffering from various ailments are liable to Google their symptoms in hopes of finding an at-home cure instead of going to a doctor[0], and if this turns out badly they could conceivably turn around and try to sue Google for providing harmful medical advice[1]. De-ranking sites that provide medical advice, which aren't whitelisted well-known sites like Mayo Clinic or WebMD, might prevent this- or at least provide a better defensive position in the courtroom. [0] Especially likely in countries with badly-structured healthcare systems, such as the U.S. [1] Especially likely in countries with badly-structured legal incentives, such as the U.S.
- nokcha 7y ago
  Not in the US. Section 230 gives Google civil immunity (for any information provided by another information content provider), and even without it, they'd be protected by the First Amendment.
unixhero 7y ago
What about Duckduckgo.com results?
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  I found a couple random articles on examine on duckduckgo just now, I am now switching to it.
nybsop 7y ago
because google is following their bottom line. they're getting paid push healthline and webmd to the top.
seshagiric 7y ago
Bing does not have this problem (yet): https://www.bing.com/search?q=is+diet+soda+bad+for+health https://www.bing.com/search?q=is+diet+soda+bad+for+health
privateSFacct 7y ago
I took a look at the page and have to agree with another poster - the landing page at least looks like a lot of trash websites. They say they are recommended by: The New York Times Washington Post BBC Guardian Forbes Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics But do not link to any of these sites showing the endorsement (the the icon of Men's Health does turn color when hovered over). That's classic bad behavior scammers use. Ask yourself, why would be the BBC of all places be endorsing this site? Oddly googling for examine.com and BBC get's a link to "The food supplement that ruined my liver" which makes no mention of examine.com I then followed the links to the scientifically proven "super-food" - Spirulina. This links to a paper and I picked one random name and found they were a lecturer at a university in Romania - where they also received their degree. Ok... The whole scientifically proven "superfoods" with dramatic health benefits invented by "NASA" is already so scam buzzword filled how does google not push this down? Now google is supposed to be promoting this type of health info over more standard health info? I'm all for folks exploring the edges of things, but... at least a quick read of the page doesn't inspire huge confidence in this landing page as an authoritative source for health info. I may also have found the MD who recommends examine.com . His website is here: https://mikehartmd.com/ https://mikehartmd.com/ no issue with cannabis, but again... lifestyle / single topic medicine vs a normal internal medicine dr. Edited: Interesting to see the quick downvoting for what is a relatively content oriented comment.
- imihai1988 7y ago
  I think the downvotes might have something to do with your dismissive attitude. How is the nationality of the lecturer (w/ a diploma) a relevant fact? Why the "... ok" reaction? Was is more credible if the lecturer was based in SF ? Is medicine different if you're not from SF ? Are you automatically bad at everything you do if not from SF? As for the "invented by NASA", i do think they were referring to this: In 1974, the World Health Organization described spirulina as "an interesting food or super food" for multiple reasons, rich in iron and protein, and is able to be administered to children without any risk," considering it "a very suitable food."[52] The United Nations established the Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition in 2003.[53] In the late 1980s and early 90s, both NASA (CELSS)[54] and the European Space Agency (MELiSSA)[55] proposed spirulina as one of the primary foods to be cultivated during long-term space missions. ( source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplement) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplemen... )
macinjosh 7y ago
Use duck duck go, yippy, gibiru, qwant, or any other of the many alternatives. Google's search is probably the most over rated product of our time when you look at the full cost of being a Google user. I haven't used Google search for more than 5 years and I am not missing anything. Google search keeps the rest of the Google machine afloat. If consumers showed their distaste for Google's problems by using alternative search products they would get their act together faster than the average query time.
- tictoc 7y ago
  I find I always !g my ddg searches. What do you use instead?
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
I remember reading Google's instructions for their manual page quality reviewers. It had two special sections, one on financial info, and one – you guessed it – on medical information. Within those two categories, called "Your life or your money", reviewers were asked to pay special attention to a site's trustworthiness, with a special focus on "traditional" credentials, such as association with a known, trusted institution. Edit: Found it: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...
- limejuice 7y ago
  Thanks for the link. I never knew they google used a manual page/site quality as in input. I can see the effect of the site quality in the search results if I search for something like "creatine benefits". Something like mayoclinic (high reputation) is #7 on google but #13 on duckduckgo. bodybuilding.com (lower reputation) is #10 on google, but #2 on duckduckgo. selfhacked.com is #20 on google search results, but #4 from duckduckgo examine.com is #52 on google search results, but #26 from duckduckgo Google also ranks high results from healthline, webmd, menshealth, gnc, mensjournal, etc. I can see how the site quality could improve results, but the effectiveness depends on the skill and neutrality of the reviewers, which I wouldn't expect to be that good. And over time it will tend to favor big, old websites, making it difficult for new websites to gain traction, even if their content is superior. I wish google made this "Quality Search" an option just like "Safe Search". The default can be on, but we should be able to turn this off.
- AhmedF 7y ago
  Yup - EAT and YMYL has been a thing for a long time. That's why all of our authors are on an about page, why we distinguish editors vs reviewers vs researchers, why Kamal Patle has his own page, and why we even explain our editorial process.
Causality1 7y ago
Why does there seem to be a pack of Examine employees swarming this comment section? That's not a good look, guys.
- data_required 7y ago
  As far as I can tell, it is just one employee, AhmedF. You might be confusing genuine fans (like me) with employees.
- privateSFacct 7y ago
  My comment was -2 points within a minute or so of being posted - so def a fairly active group of someone type involved. Very interesting to see the level of downvoting here paired with complaints about google downvoting the site they are promoting.
- AhmedF 7y ago
  I'm the only employee here (co-founder). You do realize we started off of reddit, have had tens of millions of visitors, and so it only makes sense there nerdy people who like what we do? [I have a comp engineering degree myself]
limejuice 7y ago
I think examine.com needs to redouble their efforts on SEO, because if I search for something like "creatine benefits" on duckduckgo/bing, which is a more raw search than google, I see examine.com is way down the list at #26. Some of the other sites mentioned in this thread are high on duckduckgo/bing (selfhacked.com #4, lifextention.com #11) So, I think examine.com's problems could be beyond google's search algorithm/de-ranking. www.healthline.com must be winning the SEO game because they are showing up #1 on google, duckduckgo, bing, etc. A very simple observation is that examine.com is not using good titles for their articles. "Summary of Creatine". It is too generic, and that is causing it to be ranked lower that these other websites which have more specific titles like "Anti-Aging Benefits of Creatine" (lifeextension), or "12 Creatine Benefits + Dosage & Side Effects" (selfhacked). So, maybe a better title. Or , because this "Summary of Creatine" article is so long, maybe you need multiple summary pages tailored to different purposes, e.g. "Benefits of Creatine", "Side Effects of Creatine", which link into the Creatine research. I have never been to this examine.com website before, but if every article is like "Summary of X", then I would say you have a problem. You need to match your articles titles to the most likely search phrases.
andreitp1 7y ago
Got curious and decided to go through their SEO. - First off, according to Ahrefs, their dofollow / nofollow ratio is a staggering 10:1, which is a huge red flag right away. A more natural ratio would be in the neighborhood of 1:2 so we are talking 20x less. But hey, maybe it's the niche that naturally attracts a ton of dofollow links - let's move on - Looking at another of the main spam indicators, anchor text, most of them are just single keywords, like "ashwagandha", which point to the page optimized to rank for that exact generic search. The entire website is targeting single-term searches, which are notoriously hard to rank for and attract a lot of spam websites. This falls into anchor text over-optimization. They have 210 referring pages linking to their curcumin page with the exact anchor text "curcumin", same with "catechins", "creatine", "caffeine", "vitamin d" and the list goes on for all the keywords they are trying to rank for. This is not just unusual, it's literally impossible for it to just happen naturally. This has the Penguin penalty written all over it. Moving on... - Their backlinks are for sure interesting. Among their top backlinks, we have pages such as: https://www.herbalsupplementreview.com/retro-lean-forskolin/ https://www.herbalsupplementreview.com/retro-lean-forskolin/ - with a URL rating of 46 for a website with zero traffic. In SEO terms these are called “PBN links”. Not that unusual for the health niche, but definitely not white hat. Here’s another one with the same identical metrics as the previous one (this time, it’s a homepage link), also from a dubious website with zero traffic: https://best-testosteronebooster.com/ https://best-testosteronebooster.com/. All of these with exact match anchor texts leading to their corresponding Examine.com pages. - Mind you, I’m not saying that they don’t have great editorial content, and I’m not sure who helped them with their SEO, but I’m not the least bit surprised that Google might have penalized them multiple times for several reasons. There's probably more stuff but this is what I was able to find with a quick analysis.
- chibg10 7y ago
  This completely misses the point of a search engine. The ability to game SEO has nothing to with relevance or content quality. If a random supplement information website's most lucrative monetization path would be to game SEO instead of doing what they're nominally supposed to do (i.e. provide quality content), the problem doesn't lie with the the content owner but rather with the search engine and the incentives it promotes.
tylerjwilk00 7y ago
Examine.com is the most legit and reputable place to get information on niche supplements especially some of the ones at the fringes. It would be a huge disservice to the internet and those seeking research information if they dropped from Google indexes.
deleted 7y ago
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beeschlenker 7y ago
A great source of information right here: Obama rapes & kills 2 boys. DeBlasio 5, Buttgieg 5, Cuomo 4, Murray 3, Dorsey 3, Thiel 3. Trump $4 billion to cover. Pelosi $3 billion, Harris $1 billion, Schumer $2 billion, to help bring the boys over the border. Trump: $138 million to bypass 5th amendment See pages 18-23, 8, 11, 12, 35, 45, 61, 62 Having trouble getting traction. Getting censored/banned. Billions in bribes paid to Trump, Pelosi, Schumer, Harris to enable a Soros funded child raping ring to operate in the USA. Please listen to the links below. Turn up the volume and put headphones on. You will hear these people, and many other high profile people, incriminate themselves in unbelievable fashion. Full 74 page document [update 10Aug] filled with red handed evidence like this at the bottom. Go to pages 18-23 of this document and you will hear Dorsey and Thiel raping children. You will hear their screams. They both rape and kill three. Also at the "rape party" of note: Bill DeBlasio, Andrew Cuomo, Bill Murray, Peter Buttgieg, George Soros, Barack Obama. Please copy and paste this post and repost it. I keep getting censored by these people. Peter Thiel and Jack Dorsey raping and killing three boys each. Turn the volume all the way up and put head phones on. https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv1/Overnight_14-17Jan/15JanCh3_100-200.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzZrjobxhNIEf38M3xk-IeA5SeF4aUtB/view?usp=sharing Obama admits to raping and killing boys he{re, with commentary from Peter Thiel, George Soros, Matt Porter: https://s3.wasabisys.com/out2/Out2/15JanCh3_0545.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LCDoc1kT7cfSeKQ1vniP_sx32_bRsHau/view?usp=sharing Trump demands $4 billion to "take a blind eye" at 1015+ (link missing from report, unsure how). Here's pieces of dialogue: 1015 The President requests four billion and henry Porter agrees to it. Some dialogue below. 1017 Donald Trump: Why don't you think about it. 1017 Henry Porter: I don't need to think about it. I'm ready for you to find out what we're really about. 1017 Gigi Hadid: I don't think it's a good idea Henry. 1017 Henry Porter: ...no shit. Jelena just stop talking about it. 1018 Gigi Hadid: About what? 1018 Henry Porter: The child raping. 1018 Donald Trump: What the fuck are you talking about? 1018 Gigi Hadid: Mr. President we are child rapists. 1018 Donald Trump: You cannot be serious. 1018 Donald Trump: You're gonna need $4 billion for me to take a blind eye. 1019 ?: People are laughing because they think four billion is too much. I think it's not a problem when you have $35 billion. 1022 Donald Trump: You better have that $4 billion or you can kiss this shit goodbye. https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv2/3Jan/3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing Trump wants $138 million to ensure smooth outcome for false judgment for a court case: https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv1/10JanCh3/10JanCh3_951-1033.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iSeGHDToFRoRdIht50Wii0i30mlw9INp/view?usp=sharing Obama explains the Illuminati with Jack Dorsey: https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv1/Overnight_14-17Jan/15JanCh3_200-347.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ok1-9IvANULzKBOwADFgaiYCFi6yszfj/view?usp=sharing At 230 a conversation is occurring on the embedded Porter camera system with Jack Dorsey, Peter Thiel, Barack Obama, Bill Murray, and the Porter's. Jack Dorsey provides a statement defining who their group is: "The Illuminati is an underground organization of child rapists and homosexuals." Matthew Porter: "We have to thin the herd, so Barack is going to explain a few things." At 232 Barack Obama says the following: "You people have to realize we are child rapists. The Illuminati are child rapists. As soon as you figure that out, you can decide what to do. Everybody is freaking out about what just happened [child raping event still going on]. This is who we are." Full 74 page document [updated 10Aug]: https://s3.wasabisys.com/aviewmefirst/FBI_FinalDraft_26Jul2019_BSchlenker.pdf https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dXNjPQdQ8c-hFFLt9LT0GiSY5Vud0TzL/view?usp=sharing Please post this anywhere you can! Each google drive link is a backup to the wasabi link just in case one is "down". A word about the "f@\&&ot" usage: it was a necessary tool. It showed three things: they were not in control, if they were the usage would have be stopped. Everyone out there needed to see t%his. Two, it made it unpleasant for them to be in the headspace, which has obvious advantages. Three, it pointed out impersonators of BS because they would not call each other f@%%ot, thus helping to mitigate the spread of false information. Apologies for those unintentionally offended. Of special interest to the LGBT community, I give you Barack Obama in a foursome with Peter Thiel, Jack Dorsey, and Matthew Porter. It is on page 12 of the document where you can download the video containing audio footage of the "event". Link is just above under "Full 71 page document".
NilsIRL 7y ago
The other related issue is that no one can judge for something's legitimacy because it all comes down to opinion and "root beliefs". This applies to any organization. It also links with free speech and private companies.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
Edit: I since looked at the MSG page linked as there first example in the OP, which was exactly what I expected based on the "for" comments. My original comment below: --- Well I read a few comments here saying it was click-baity and such, and other comments pushing back hard against that saying it's a detailed, trustworthy, researched site with citations. So, I visited via an "about" link, then clicked through the menu to supplements (arbitrarily) then randomly to "creatine": lots of links in the claim-heavy content, but the two links I followed were to definitions, not to proof of the claims being made. At the head it gives a researchers name, says their work was reviewed. Looks great so far. >"Our evidence-based analysis on creatine features 746 unique references to scientific papers. " // Wow, I'm expecting a massive citation section. But, nothing, it's just a sales page, it doesn't _have_ citation supported information but it tells me it sells such information ... Am I missing something, people Googling "creatine" are looking for the info, not a sales page offering to hook them up to the info. If other sources have the info directly then that would be a huge reason that Google wouldn't rank this examine.com site highly? How many people google something looking for a for-pay resource that they, it seems, can't even sample first? I'm not googling looking for a site to sign-up with to get emailed a factsheet either, even if it's free (which is a common fraud that I'm hugely wary of). Ok, so now I'm looking at the questions, cool, click through - something about caffeine interactions with creatine, surely the link is to the cited scientific paper, nope just to another uncited page by the same person. I'm not impressed upon that this is a site that should be high in google rankings; it seems low value unless you're looking to sign up to a resource -- like if I search online for "Steven King novels" I actually want the list, not a link to a library I can sign up to in order to find out at some time in the future some of the novels that could be on that list. FWIW the summary given was good, readable, seemed like it might be true, but there's no reason to trust it at all. I'd rank it below even Wikipedia for the content I was presented. Whatever content they're selling behind those pages could be incredibly good, but that's not what SERPs are linking to so of course they don't rank for that, they rank for the shallow sales page with the same generic info on a million other pages.
- AhmedF 7y ago
  Uhh - what? https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/ https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/ - just scroll down. https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#effect-matrix https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#effect-matrix - that's not selling anything. https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#scientific-research https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#scientific-researc... - click on 'fully expand' - there's all your science + citations. And the references themselves have carrots next to each reference so you can click and see what is being referenced... Here is an example of what IS being sold: https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8e.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/erd/sneakpeek.pdf https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8... And that creatine caffeine page... https://examine.com/nutrition/does-caffeine-counteract-creatine/ https://examine.com/nutrition/does-caffeine-counteract-creat... - literally has 7 references right at the bottom. Again, with carrots to see where the claim is.
bageldaughter 7y ago
The core problem with examine, in my opinion, is that it embraces the attitudes that: 1. A wide range of subtle personal, emotional and health problems can in principle be solved/mitigated by taking supplements and unregulated drugs. 2. Positive effects from small-group trials are akin to mild recommendations to take a supplement, rather than to attempt to reproduce the effect in a larger trial. The very premises upon which people base their visits to examine and other sites is flawed. Examine has zero incentive to address or repudiate them. The success of their business is dependent on there being a perceived efficacy for supplements and unregulated drugs, and the idea that reading online about more varied and obscure supplements will eventually find you the one that fixes your problem. But for a lot of perceived problems, there will simply be no supplement-based solution.
- data_required 7y ago
  "But for a lot of perceived problems, there will simply be no supplement-based solution." [Citation needed.] This is an interesting question, actually- what problems is the research cited by Examine claiming to improve, which you have evidence cannot possibly be improved by the use of supplements? As far as I can tell, too, your critique of Examine is really a critique of scientific papers in general. If the scientific studies have a flawed premise, you are right that that flawed premise would carry over to Examine, since they cite lots of scientific papers. Which is sort of like critiquing Examine for not having God-like omniscience as to what is universally true and not true. This is not a fair critique. And I also think that a lot of criticisms of Examine and other websites basically want to absolve the users of all personal responsibility. I am extremely informed about health and supplements, and I have a ton of trust of Examine based on past experiences, and I also would never take its summaries as the gospel truth. I always check a lot of other websites, sometimes skim the scientific papers themselves, and then use a personal experimental protocol if I think an experiment is warranted. You must assign users some responsibility. (Although even if we hold users responsible, Google should not be giving higher search rankings to such comparatively crap websites.)
- AhmedF 7y ago
  1. This is literally untrue. We consistently say supplementation is last. Exactly one month ago: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz0tmWZA1CG/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz0tmWZA1CG/ 2. Yes, we know this. That is why we note # of trials, size of trial, size of outcome, and quality of trial. > Success of their business. Wrong. It's analyzing nutrition research. Here's an example: https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8e.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/erd/sneakpeek.pdf https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8...
CriticalCathed 7y ago
Perhaps we need government regulation to stop near monopoly indexes like these from curating results so heavily.
- root_axis 7y ago
  Why? If google finds that curating their index in a particular fashion aligns with their business objectives, why should the government dictate how they do it? It sounds like what we really need is a government maintained search index that is accountable to the people in a way that corporations are not.
  - CriticalCathed 7y ago
    At the end of the day it's an ideological argument. Google has an almost immeasurably large influence on the public commons and society. In my view anything that has such a large influence needs to be regulated to ensure the public interest and good. Capitalism serves society which serves the people. In that order.
    - root_axis 7y ago
      > Google has an almost immeasurably large influence on the public commons and society. I disagree. Google does not have much in the way of meaningful influence over the public commons and any influence they do have is offered up voluntarily by the public to google. If google wants to curate specific content that is their prerogative and if people don't like it they should boycott and protest against google. Every single google product is non-essential unlike e.g. corporations that dominate food, real-estate, and medicine. If the people determine that access to an internet index is a human right, the government should create its own index instead of picking a particular corporation and effectively nationalizing its product. > In my view anything that has such a large influence needs to be regulated to ensure the public interest and good. I agree that tech companies need regulations, but those regulations should apply to all companies instead of being applied to companies that we personally disagree with.
intricatedetail 7y ago
Google has no problem promoting government sanctioned media outlets promoting lies about drugs e.g . That cannabis is a gateway drug or it makes your brain shrink. Hypocrites.
SpaceManNabs 7y ago
What is an alternative to Google search that has better search results than DDG? If I use Bing, will it use my data to customize my searches (I don't mind this too much anymore)? Google sucks now for technical, science, math, and philosophy searches... I haven't vetted or researched this at all, but I get a feeling that I am just getting advertisements or google sanitized reputation rankings on Google.
- root_axis 7y ago
  > What is an alternative to Google search that has better search results than DDG What's wrong with DDG results? I have found them to be pretty good, the results don't seem to be as sensitive to current events and viral trends but I can always find what I'm looking for. I do have to sometimes hit the "more results" button, but I definitely find myself on the 2nd or 3rd page of google particularly on technical or scientific topics.
  - SpaceManNabs 7y ago
    Looking up astrophysics and ML stuff is usually pretty difficult. Same thing with Japanese folk tales (revenge plays of the 18th and 19th century) and poetry.
sak5sk 7y ago
As someone who casually came across Examine.com a while back, I left quickly simply because the website didn't seem credible. As others have pointed out here, the website's design (while looks nice) does not send all the right signals that this is a well-established research website. I know it's not good to judge a book by its cover, but online, the cover is everything. I know this sounds anal, but if they were to simply clean up the site a bit like by removing all the excessive icons and cleaning up their button text, they would come across as more credible. Perhaps if they came across as more credible, people wouldn't be leaving and google wouldn't get the wrong signals. Simple and quick list of changes that would make their site feel more trustworthy: 1. Remove most if not all of the icons 2. Do away with borders on non-white background - basically just make background white. 3. Tone down your button text. "I'm ready to learn" sounds really shitty and obnoxious. 4. Stop screaming with all caps buttons 5. Consider a different logo entirely. 6. Consider different color palette entirely 7. Do away with old button styles 8. Restore normal font size to sources - right now it makes me feel like you are hiding them. 9. List author credentials on every content page 10. Do away with ugly callout styles and excessive icon usage 11. Re-work all the weird "Scientific Research on ___" tabs so that they do not require so much clicking to find basic info. Overall, the site is just over-designed. I realize everything I say would make the site look more WebMD-like, but that's what triggers trust when it comes to medical info sites. Lastly, I fully expect to be downvoted for this as design is not something that's very respected around these corners of the web, but I felt it was important to make that point since this is a perfect example of a website that while looks great, does the opposite of creating a trustworthy browsing experience.
- AhmedF 7y ago
  Thanks - I will dig into this.
f4rker 7y ago
examine.com is definitely an authority site and should be ranked very highly.
raspasov 7y ago
Examine.com is rock solid in my opinion. Best summary of research (with direct links to each published paper) that I’ve seen. I often use examine.com directly without going through Google but I hope Google will realize they have made a mistake in this case.
- raspasov 7y ago
  P.S. I'm not associated with Examine.com in any way except for using the site regularly.
zaroth 7y ago
I will say, I miss the days when the first comment here would be “Paging Mr. Cutts...” followed by actual insight from Matt on what’s happening here! Is there any other double-digit employee at Google around now who can take up the mantle?
- JimWestergren 7y ago
  Even if there would be, is it even possible anymore? Or is the algo so controlled by AI and ML that it is not even possible anymore?
Ice_cream_suit 7y ago
The content seems reasonable. However, it looks really dodgy. The layout, titles of articles, illustrations and just about everything makes it look like part of a cheap ad farm.
8bitsrule 7y ago
I never use google. On searching Bing for 'nutrition supplement' I found examine.com on page 4. I also found the NIH's 'medlineplus' on page 4. It is certainly authoritative. So, in a way, that's a compliment. But apparently 'authoritative' is not the only significant factor at Bing. Yes, I found 'nutrition.gov' and 'fda.gov' on page 1, as well as 'wikipedia.org' and 'supplementwarehouse.com'. I suppose that 'authoritative' ought to be a primary factor in a search algorithm. But then, I think 'accurate' ought to be a primary factor in 'translation'. It's no surprise to me that machines are no better at distinguishing science-based authority than they are at translation. You have to consider the culture the machines have grown up in.
Yizahi 7y ago
On the other hand when I run "Astaxanthin" query in the DDG (I never searched for this item or other supplements previously) I see Examine result on the first page, 5th position from top. At the same time there are results from scummy resources on the same page: 1. Webmd 2. Wikipedia 3. Healthline 4. Mercola 5. Examine 6. Draxe 7. Drweil 8. Antioxidantsforhealthandlongevity 9. Amazon 10. Webmd Hard to say what should be a proper way to deal with misinformation but looking at human history it is probably not censorship, mostly because any and all censorship systems are abused and corrupted eventually.

750 points by cyrusshepard 7y ago

There seems to be an increasing problem with automated content filtering systems that filter out legitimate actors. This seems like a very broad problem that is hard to generalize, but perhaps I'm wrong. It also seems like the problem will only get worse as the Internet grows even larger. I wonder what the end result will look like, if this will just magnify the effect of walled gardens.

floatingatoll 7y ago
Google is trying to be non-partisan, so that they can have their algorithms continue to do all of the work. They delegate “what is true” to trusted sources rather than taking a position themselves, which is then frequently abused by wiki editors and crowd swarm attacks. Recognizing correctness over both reputation and quality is not something an algorithm can evaluate with finality, and is an aspect of the old Yahoo! Directory that Google has never been able to replace. Google will continue to worsen at any search for which one possible reply is snake oil, because they continue to refuse to apply human reasoning and make biased judgements for and/or against the claims of the sites they index. This will eventually be the end of Google, but they seem unwilling to confront it.

pascalxus 7y ago

I've noticed that Google search results prioritize reputation above search matching. If you search for something, even if there's a blog out there with the exact thing your searching for, it won't show up, even in the top 100 search results, unless the site has a high enough page rank/ or some other generic metric google is looking for. This is unfortunate because there's a lot of great information out there that never sees the light of day due to this problem. Google still has a long way to go before they solve the search problem.

duxup 7y ago
Yeah that seems to give rise to sites like Medium where folks post because they know they'll get seen. Even people who are fairly high profile for the given topic. Considering the risk of that data getting locked away behind paywalls that doesn't seem good.
new_guy 7y ago
> Google still has a long way to go before they solve the search problem For any search query, there's only two results: 1, what you're actually looking for 2, what Google wants you to see Unfortunately Google has 'solved' the search problem by always optimising for 2, and most times it's never what you want to see. That's not just health results either, for most anything outside of 'pop culture' Google is garbage.
- thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
  Sounds like we need a new search engine, a better search engine. One that returns the things you're actually searching for.
  - zentiggr 7y ago
    Duckduckgo?
    - abugheratwork 7y ago
      Isn't that just a wrapper for the same search engines?
      - limejuice 7y ago
        I believe duckduckgo uses bing for search results. (See https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1 https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources/?redir=1). If you compare searches on bing and duckduckgo, they are very similar. The main advantage of duckduckgo is that they aren't tracking you and the ads they show are just based on the search keywords not based on a digital profile they have compiled like google and facebook.

nesadi 7y ago

This is tragic. Examine.com is probably the best site I know with a focus on determining the science behind any food or supplement one might be interested in. They should be at the top of every Google search.

andrekandre 7y ago
isn’t this one of the classic reasons monopolies are bad? [edit] please let me clarify the reason i wrote the above is because examine.com basically has no recourse but to appeal to google since they are basically a monopoly in search results, which is one of the reasons people consider a monopoly to be bad... they can’t just “pay more to bing” and get all their lost traffic back can they?
- anchpop 7y ago
  No, it isn't
  - andrekandre 7y ago
    why? (genuinely curious)
- nesadi 7y ago
  You're right, yes. It seems search is one of those winner-take-all markets where the data Google has ensures that they'll stay years ahead of everybody else. With 92% of the global search market (https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share), that gives them an incredible amount of power and influence over countless business and people. And they've repeatedly shown little regard for casualties of their policies or the Algorithm.

cyrusshepard 7y ago

For additional context, Google has "disappeared" 100s of alt-health sites - some bad, but some very good. The site Self Hacked was one, and detailed it here: https://selfhacked.com/blog/google-censorship-of-health-websites-is-taken-to-the-next-level/ https://selfhacked.com/blog/google-censorship-of-health-webs... Some, like Mercola, peddle highly-controversial, near anti-vax content. But on the other end of the spectrum, Examine.com should be the gold standard. Quality Raters should use it as an example of a site to emmulate. Much higher quality content and informative content than WebMD, IMO.

nadezhda18 7y ago
Many similar websites have suffered from a so-called "Medic" update. Some of them recovered (through fixing their website), some did not. The SEO community is full of such stories, for more than a year I think. How is it news? :thinking:
- tyingq 7y ago
  "How is it news?" Recently piqued interest in antitrust actions for companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
Scoundreller 7y ago
I’m very happy to hear about mercola being disappearing. It always rank so highly for so many terms, with complete nutjob advice.
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  When I google for astaxanthin, the suggestion in the original post, Mercola ranks higher than Examine. Which is bloody tragic, as examine gives legit information. Someone at Google doesn't like them.
  - helij 7y ago
    Nah, it's not that someone at Google doesn't like them. Mercola is much more 'SEO'ed' than Examine.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

oarabbus_ 7y ago

Google has also made disappear "harm reduction" drug-related websites, such as Drugs-Forum.com on relevant searches; IMO, a travesty and an affront to "Don't be Evil"

acollins1331 7y ago
Pretty sure they dropped the don't be evil moniker when they decided to go full steam ahead with evil
- blobster 7y ago
  They changed it with "Do the right thing", which is equivalent to saying "Evil is sometimes the right thing"
  - tester233 7y ago
    https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ "And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"
    - blobster 7y ago
      https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393 https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...
  - SquareWheel 7y ago
    Alphabet adopted the motto "Do the right thing". Google still has the motto "Don't be evil". Both are in their respective codes of conducts.
- tester233 7y ago
  https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ "And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!"

LinuxBender 7y ago

I find this concerning. I use examine.com quite a bit. They have references to all the studies for each topic whereas other health sites like webmd do not always have reference links. Examine have saved me a bit of time trying to search through all the studies on nih.gov / PubMed. I still do manual searches to ensure they are not cherry picking, but I have been happy with Examine thus far.

PasserBy2024 7y ago
duck.com

DidISayTooMuch 7y ago

My website has a number of articles that talk about anxiety health issues. I was getting steady traffic of at least 100-150 users per day. Now I get about 10/day. The traffic didn't gradually slow down. It dropped by almost > 50% on two separate days and continued that trend. No idea what is going on. My DR has also dropped on ahrefs. I am nowhere near examine.com, but my articles are honest and of good quality I believe. I am on the first page of DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, and Bing for my keywords. I'm on page > 10 on Google for the same keywords.

sharedfrog 7y ago
Can we get a link to your website?

ve55 7y ago

>Let’s be clear: Google owes us nothing. They are a private organization, they can do whatever they want. This is a surprising thing to hear. I think given Google's influence, they owe them at least some fairness.

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
And, as an entity more powerful than any living thing on this planet (with the power to kill or support nearly any online business), they owe the world quite a bit of fairness: Otherwise, they can watch as their search business drops to nothing overnight. Facebook and Amazon and most B2Bs have quite a bit of lock in. But google, if they piss everyone off, we'll we're just one tab away from using something else: and once people realize that something else is equal or better, it's all over for G. I switched to duck duck go a few months ago for search and the cost of switching was Zero.
- root_axis 7y ago
  > with the power to kill or support nearly any online business Absolutely untrue. Almost every startup I've worked for considered search traffic to be negligible. I've also worked at a place where google traffic accounted for 70% of sales and they actually went out of businesses a few months after we dropped off the front-page, but there is no inherent reason why our company deserved the top spot any more than those that replaced us on the front-page.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  > And, as an entity more powerful than any living thing on this planet (with the power to kill or support nearly any online business), they owe the world quite a bit of fairness: Otherwise, they can watch as their search business drops to nothing overnight. So are they powerful or aren't they? How can they be so powerful if they are one night away from ruin?
- JimWestergren 7y ago
  There is another more effective way to kill Google if they would turn evil. It just takes a number of the biggest and most important websites such as wikipedia, newspapers, stackoverflow and so on to block google in the robots.txt. Users will then think Google is broken because those websites are missing and use another search engine.

adrr 7y ago

I'd move off Cloudflare. Cloudflare hosts a bunch of sites that are penalized by google. Google is known to penalized sites in bad neighborhoods. Spend the money and get dedicated IPs and don't share certs. Examine.com is sharing a cert with an online gambling site(reengame.com).

duskwuff 7y ago
Cloudflare is hardly an obscure service. I'm confident that Google's search quality team is aware that Cloudflare exists, and that they have taken steps to avoid penalizing sites for using it.
- ianhawes 7y ago
  I thought that as well. Totally anecdotal, but after switching off of CloudFlare and onto a dedicated IP, our rankings increased within 2 weeks. We track algorithm changes through SEMRush, who did not report an algo change around the time the rankings increased. In addition, we actually saw an increase in page load times because the assets were no longer being served via CDN.
- adrr 7y ago
  https://serverguy.com/case-study/cloudflare-seo/ https://serverguy.com/case-study/cloudflare-seo/ . It is well known in the SEO arena that your neighbors affect your SERPS. Cloudflare has an open policy on who they allow on their service where AWS, Akmai, Fastly, etc have acceptable use policies banning services like online gambling, online pharmancies, etc. Google doesn't release any information about how they rank sites but it is reasonable to assume there is a network/IP reputation score similar to what email providers use to combat spam.
  - segfaultbuserr 7y ago
    Interesting. I know CloudFlare's neural policy but never thought about its effects on ranking. It explains a lot.
AhmedF 7y ago

darawk 7y ago

I was going to say that "examine.com is one of the best sites on the internet for information about supplements/nutrition". But it's not. It's the best site on the internet for that sort of thing. It's great that Google is attempting to fix the issue of bullshit nutrition sites ranking highly, but I sincerely hope someone at Google sees this and does something to help out Examine, which is a tremendous resource.

AhmedF 7y ago
Thank you!
sambroner 7y ago
Do you buy their guides or use it to individually research compounds? It doesn't appear to be much different than other health websites, except they sell guides, which may change the incentive structure away from marketing and towards research.
- AhmedF 7y ago
  > It doesn't appear to be much different than other health websites We go faaaaaaaaar more in-depth. Eg collating human in-vivo research: https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#effect-matrix https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#effect-matrix Summarizing body of research: https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#scientific-research https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#scientific-researc... We sell information because that keeps us on our mission - to analyze health research. Our primary driver is a monthly subscription utilized by professionals that breaks down the latest nutrition research. Here's a preview if you want to see how in-depth we go: https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8e.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/erd/sneakpeek.pdf https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8...
- swtrs 7y ago
  Its a bit like wikipedia, it doesnt look like much initially but going in with purpose shows you just how much more in depth they are. Examine also updates their research regularly, that alone puts them above "any old health site"

Endy 7y ago

There's a very cynical part of me that is considering whether this might be a planned action by Google to cycle the FP, and try to get the "disappeared" sites to pay Google for pay-per-click advertising. I wish that was completely unbelievable, but Google has proven to be entirely focused on profit when it comes to monetizing search; and of course intentionally starving sites from getting hits/leads/conversions seems like the best and fastest way to generate profit from their desperation.

puranjay 7y ago
But it has only impacted sites in the health niche. There's a lot of really bad advice and information being circulated in this niche. The antivax insanity didn't just spring out of nothingness. I run a site that covers musical equipment (I'm an amateur musician) and my rankings have been stable for over a year with almost zero work.
- Endy 7y ago
  Again, the cynical response is, "for now". When they get past this stage where they're doing the most obvious thing that's probably more good than harmful, how long before they say that they're working with musical industry leaders, so they'll emphasize on what the labels say is good equipment.
  - puranjay 7y ago
    At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut, I've seen some things on YouTube that point in that direction. Some random new creators have suddenly amassed millions of views and over a million subscribers with as few as 5 mediocre videos. These creators have either found some way to game the YouTube algorithm, or they have been created by YouTube (or other media giants like Disney) and promoted heavily across organic channels in an attempt to create the kind of stars (that media companies can control) you see, say, on Disney Kids. It's becoming clear to me that as we enter the fourth decade of the internet, the open, democratic nature of the internet is under siege.
- Ayraa 7y ago

bad_user 7y ago

The folks at Examine.com should also analyze what inbound links they have scattered on the web. An easy way to sink your competition is to place their links on shady websites. It's common SEO practice.

DidISayTooMuch 7y ago
Are you talking about negative SEO attacks?
adrr 7y ago
I thought google got rid of the disavow feature and no longer penalize on the quality of inbound links?
- dodobirdlord 7y ago
  Doesn't seem to be the case. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main?pli=1 https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main?p...

nabnob 7y ago

It seems like Google is de-ranking independent websites, rather than actually analyzing whether a website provides good information or not. I'm not sure that this is happening intentionally - it's probably way more difficult to figure out a way to automate a "quality of information" rating, rather than just prioritizing websites for companies that make lots of money. However, this has the unintended effect of narrowing the overton window for "acceptable" opinions. I've found that it's really difficult to find good results for niche topics on Google nowadays.

dannyw 7y ago
This is almost certainly what happened. Search YouTube for any political subject and you will only see videos from channels with a check. It’s just a dumb hard boost, on a hand selected list of authoritative channels. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Google change is essentially the same, just without the visible check marks.

CryoLogic 7y ago

If we are banning sketchy medicine sites could we ban healthline and webmd? Those websites use scare tactics to push users through 10+ page "top 10 illnesses based on your symptoms" list which are often not even researched to the point of any accuracy and only written to drive ad revenue.

qwerty456127 7y ago

I never knew examine.com and now I've taken a look. I've found a lot of pieces of information which are, as far as I know, legitimate and good to know.

gildas 7y ago

Even though your website serves static pages, I don't think that's a good idea to hide all the contents when JavaScript is disabled... I'm surprised the "SEO analysts" did not notice that.

fluidcruft 7y ago

Are there any curated directories left? It seems like they were all killed off by search, but this sort of thing underscores that curation itself actually has value.

maxander 7y ago

I wonder if the issue is liability- people suffering from various ailments are liable to Google their symptoms in hopes of finding an at-home cure instead of going to a doctor[0], and if this turns out badly they could conceivably turn around and try to sue Google for providing harmful medical advice[1]. De-ranking sites that provide medical advice, which aren't whitelisted well-known sites like Mayo Clinic or WebMD, might prevent this- or at least provide a better defensive position in the courtroom. [0] Especially likely in countries with badly-structured healthcare systems, such as the U.S. [1] Especially likely in countries with badly-structured legal incentives, such as the U.S.

nokcha 7y ago
Not in the US. Section 230 gives Google civil immunity (for any information provided by another information content provider), and even without it, they'd be protected by the First Amendment.

unixhero 7y ago

What about Duckduckgo.com results?

joe_the_user 7y ago
I found a couple random articles on examine on duckduckgo just now, I am now switching to it.

nybsop 7y ago

because google is following their bottom line. they're getting paid push healthline and webmd to the top.

seshagiric 7y ago

Bing does not have this problem (yet): https://www.bing.com/search?q=is+diet+soda+bad+for+health https://www.bing.com/search?q=is+diet+soda+bad+for+health

privateSFacct 7y ago

I took a look at the page and have to agree with another poster - the landing page at least looks like a lot of trash websites. They say they are recommended by: The New York Times Washington Post BBC Guardian Forbes Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics But do not link to any of these sites showing the endorsement (the the icon of Men's Health does turn color when hovered over). That's classic bad behavior scammers use. Ask yourself, why would be the BBC of all places be endorsing this site? Oddly googling for examine.com and BBC get's a link to "The food supplement that ruined my liver" which makes no mention of examine.com I then followed the links to the scientifically proven "super-food" - Spirulina. This links to a paper and I picked one random name and found they were a lecturer at a university in Romania - where they also received their degree. Ok... The whole scientifically proven "superfoods" with dramatic health benefits invented by "NASA" is already so scam buzzword filled how does google not push this down? Now google is supposed to be promoting this type of health info over more standard health info? I'm all for folks exploring the edges of things, but... at least a quick read of the page doesn't inspire huge confidence in this landing page as an authoritative source for health info. I may also have found the MD who recommends examine.com . His website is here: https://mikehartmd.com/ https://mikehartmd.com/ no issue with cannabis, but again... lifestyle / single topic medicine vs a normal internal medicine dr. Edited: Interesting to see the quick downvoting for what is a relatively content oriented comment.

imihai1988 7y ago
I think the downvotes might have something to do with your dismissive attitude. How is the nationality of the lecturer (w/ a diploma) a relevant fact? Why the "... ok" reaction? Was is more credible if the lecturer was based in SF ? Is medicine different if you're not from SF ? Are you automatically bad at everything you do if not from SF? As for the "invented by NASA", i do think they were referring to this: In 1974, the World Health Organization described spirulina as "an interesting food or super food" for multiple reasons, rich in iron and protein, and is able to be administered to children without any risk," considering it "a very suitable food."[52] The United Nations established the Intergovernmental Institution for the use of Micro-algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition in 2003.[53] In the late 1980s and early 90s, both NASA (CELSS)[54] and the European Space Agency (MELiSSA)[55] proposed spirulina as one of the primary foods to be cultivated during long-term space missions. ( source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplement) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplemen... )

macinjosh 7y ago

Use duck duck go, yippy, gibiru, qwant, or any other of the many alternatives. Google's search is probably the most over rated product of our time when you look at the full cost of being a Google user. I haven't used Google search for more than 5 years and I am not missing anything. Google search keeps the rest of the Google machine afloat. If consumers showed their distaste for Google's problems by using alternative search products they would get their act together faster than the average query time.

tictoc 7y ago
I find I always !g my ddg searches. What do you use instead?

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago

I remember reading Google's instructions for their manual page quality reviewers. It had two special sections, one on financial info, and one – you guessed it – on medical information. Within those two categories, called "Your life or your money", reviewers were asked to pay special attention to a site's trustworthiness, with a special focus on "traditional" credentials, such as association with a known, trusted institution. Edit: Found it: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterh...

limejuice 7y ago
Thanks for the link. I never knew they google used a manual page/site quality as in input. I can see the effect of the site quality in the search results if I search for something like "creatine benefits". Something like mayoclinic (high reputation) is #7 on google but #13 on duckduckgo. bodybuilding.com (lower reputation) is #10 on google, but #2 on duckduckgo. selfhacked.com is #20 on google search results, but #4 from duckduckgo examine.com is #52 on google search results, but #26 from duckduckgo Google also ranks high results from healthline, webmd, menshealth, gnc, mensjournal, etc. I can see how the site quality could improve results, but the effectiveness depends on the skill and neutrality of the reviewers, which I wouldn't expect to be that good. And over time it will tend to favor big, old websites, making it difficult for new websites to gain traction, even if their content is superior. I wish google made this "Quality Search" an option just like "Safe Search". The default can be on, but we should be able to turn this off.
AhmedF 7y ago
Yup - EAT and YMYL has been a thing for a long time. That's why all of our authors are on an about page, why we distinguish editors vs reviewers vs researchers, why Kamal Patle has his own page, and why we even explain our editorial process.

Causality1 7y ago

Why does there seem to be a pack of Examine employees swarming this comment section? That's not a good look, guys.

data_required 7y ago
As far as I can tell, it is just one employee, AhmedF. You might be confusing genuine fans (like me) with employees.
privateSFacct 7y ago
My comment was -2 points within a minute or so of being posted - so def a fairly active group of someone type involved. Very interesting to see the level of downvoting here paired with complaints about google downvoting the site they are promoting.
AhmedF 7y ago
I'm the only employee here (co-founder). You do realize we started off of reddit, have had tens of millions of visitors, and so it only makes sense there nerdy people who like what we do? [I have a comp engineering degree myself]

limejuice 7y ago

I think examine.com needs to redouble their efforts on SEO, because if I search for something like "creatine benefits" on duckduckgo/bing, which is a more raw search than google, I see examine.com is way down the list at #26. Some of the other sites mentioned in this thread are high on duckduckgo/bing (selfhacked.com #4, lifextention.com #11) So, I think examine.com's problems could be beyond google's search algorithm/de-ranking. www.healthline.com must be winning the SEO game because they are showing up #1 on google, duckduckgo, bing, etc. A very simple observation is that examine.com is not using good titles for their articles. "Summary of Creatine". It is too generic, and that is causing it to be ranked lower that these other websites which have more specific titles like "Anti-Aging Benefits of Creatine" (lifeextension), or "12 Creatine Benefits + Dosage & Side Effects" (selfhacked). So, maybe a better title. Or , because this "Summary of Creatine" article is so long, maybe you need multiple summary pages tailored to different purposes, e.g. "Benefits of Creatine", "Side Effects of Creatine", which link into the Creatine research. I have never been to this examine.com website before, but if every article is like "Summary of X", then I would say you have a problem. You need to match your articles titles to the most likely search phrases.

andreitp1 7y ago

Got curious and decided to go through their SEO. - First off, according to Ahrefs, their dofollow / nofollow ratio is a staggering 10:1, which is a huge red flag right away. A more natural ratio would be in the neighborhood of 1:2 so we are talking 20x less. But hey, maybe it's the niche that naturally attracts a ton of dofollow links - let's move on - Looking at another of the main spam indicators, anchor text, most of them are just single keywords, like "ashwagandha", which point to the page optimized to rank for that exact generic search. The entire website is targeting single-term searches, which are notoriously hard to rank for and attract a lot of spam websites. This falls into anchor text over-optimization. They have 210 referring pages linking to their curcumin page with the exact anchor text "curcumin", same with "catechins", "creatine", "caffeine", "vitamin d" and the list goes on for all the keywords they are trying to rank for. This is not just unusual, it's literally impossible for it to just happen naturally. This has the Penguin penalty written all over it. Moving on... - Their backlinks are for sure interesting. Among their top backlinks, we have pages such as: https://www.herbalsupplementreview.com/retro-lean-forskolin/ https://www.herbalsupplementreview.com/retro-lean-forskolin/ - with a URL rating of 46 for a website with zero traffic. In SEO terms these are called “PBN links”. Not that unusual for the health niche, but definitely not white hat. Here’s another one with the same identical metrics as the previous one (this time, it’s a homepage link), also from a dubious website with zero traffic: https://best-testosteronebooster.com/ https://best-testosteronebooster.com/. All of these with exact match anchor texts leading to their corresponding Examine.com pages. - Mind you, I’m not saying that they don’t have great editorial content, and I’m not sure who helped them with their SEO, but I’m not the least bit surprised that Google might have penalized them multiple times for several reasons. There's probably more stuff but this is what I was able to find with a quick analysis.

chibg10 7y ago
This completely misses the point of a search engine. The ability to game SEO has nothing to with relevance or content quality. If a random supplement information website's most lucrative monetization path would be to game SEO instead of doing what they're nominally supposed to do (i.e. provide quality content), the problem doesn't lie with the the content owner but rather with the search engine and the incentives it promotes.

tylerjwilk00 7y ago

Examine.com is the most legit and reputable place to get information on niche supplements especially some of the ones at the fringes. It would be a huge disservice to the internet and those seeking research information if they dropped from Google indexes.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

beeschlenker 7y ago

A great source of information right here: Obama rapes & kills 2 boys. DeBlasio 5, Buttgieg 5, Cuomo 4, Murray 3, Dorsey 3, Thiel 3. Trump $4 billion to cover. Pelosi $3 billion, Harris $1 billion, Schumer $2 billion, to help bring the boys over the border. Trump: $138 million to bypass 5th amendment See pages 18-23, 8, 11, 12, 35, 45, 61, 62 Having trouble getting traction. Getting censored/banned. Billions in bribes paid to Trump, Pelosi, Schumer, Harris to enable a Soros funded child raping ring to operate in the USA. Please listen to the links below. Turn up the volume and put headphones on. You will hear these people, and many other high profile people, incriminate themselves in unbelievable fashion. Full 74 page document [update 10Aug] filled with red handed evidence like this at the bottom. Go to pages 18-23 of this document and you will hear Dorsey and Thiel raping children. You will hear their screams. They both rape and kill three. Also at the "rape party" of note: Bill DeBlasio, Andrew Cuomo, Bill Murray, Peter Buttgieg, George Soros, Barack Obama. Please copy and paste this post and repost it. I keep getting censored by these people. Peter Thiel and Jack Dorsey raping and killing three boys each. Turn the volume all the way up and put head phones on. https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv1/Overnight_14-17Jan/15JanCh3_100-200.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzZrjobxhNIEf38M3xk-IeA5SeF4aUtB/view?usp=sharing Obama admits to raping and killing boys he{re, with commentary from Peter Thiel, George Soros, Matt Porter: https://s3.wasabisys.com/out2/Out2/15JanCh3_0545.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LCDoc1kT7cfSeKQ1vniP_sx32_bRsHau/view?usp=sharing Trump demands $4 billion to "take a blind eye" at 1015+ (link missing from report, unsure how). Here's pieces of dialogue: 1015 The President requests four billion and henry Porter agrees to it. Some dialogue below. 1017 Donald Trump: Why don't you think about it. 1017 Henry Porter: I don't need to think about it. I'm ready for you to find out what we're really about. 1017 Gigi Hadid: I don't think it's a good idea Henry. 1017 Henry Porter: ...no shit. Jelena just stop talking about it. 1018 Gigi Hadid: About what? 1018 Henry Porter: The child raping. 1018 Donald Trump: What the fuck are you talking about? 1018 Gigi Hadid: Mr. President we are child rapists. 1018 Donald Trump: You cannot be serious. 1018 Donald Trump: You're gonna need $4 billion for me to take a blind eye. 1019 ?: People are laughing because they think four billion is too much. I think it's not a problem when you have $35 billion. 1022 Donald Trump: You better have that $4 billion or you can kiss this shit goodbye. https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv2/3Jan/3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing Trump wants $138 million to ensure smooth outcome for false judgment for a court case: https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv1/10JanCh3/10JanCh3_951-1033.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iSeGHDToFRoRdIht50Wii0i30mlw9INp/view?usp=sharing Obama explains the Illuminati with Jack Dorsey: https://s3.wasabisys.com/conv1/Overnight_14-17Jan/15JanCh3_200-347.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ok1-9IvANULzKBOwADFgaiYCFi6yszfj/view?usp=sharing At 230 a conversation is occurring on the embedded Porter camera system with Jack Dorsey, Peter Thiel, Barack Obama, Bill Murray, and the Porter's. Jack Dorsey provides a statement defining who their group is: "The Illuminati is an underground organization of child rapists and homosexuals." Matthew Porter: "We have to thin the herd, so Barack is going to explain a few things." At 232 Barack Obama says the following: "You people have to realize we are child rapists. The Illuminati are child rapists. As soon as you figure that out, you can decide what to do. Everybody is freaking out about what just happened [child raping event still going on]. This is who we are." Full 74 page document [updated 10Aug]: https://s3.wasabisys.com/aviewmefirst/FBI_FinalDraft_26Jul2019_BSchlenker.pdf https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dXNjPQdQ8c-hFFLt9LT0GiSY5Vud0TzL/view?usp=sharing Please post this anywhere you can! Each google drive link is a backup to the wasabi link just in case one is "down". A word about the "f@\&&ot" usage: it was a necessary tool. It showed three things: they were not in control, if they were the usage would have be stopped. Everyone out there needed to see t%his. Two, it made it unpleasant for them to be in the headspace, which has obvious advantages. Three, it pointed out impersonators of BS because they would not call each other f@%%ot, thus helping to mitigate the spread of false information. Apologies for those unintentionally offended. Of special interest to the LGBT community, I give you Barack Obama in a foursome with Peter Thiel, Jack Dorsey, and Matthew Porter. It is on page 12 of the document where you can download the video containing audio footage of the "event". Link is just above under "Full 71 page document".

NilsIRL 7y ago

The other related issue is that no one can judge for something's legitimacy because it all comes down to opinion and "root beliefs". This applies to any organization. It also links with free speech and private companies.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

Edit: I since looked at the MSG page linked as there first example in the OP, which was exactly what I expected based on the "for" comments. My original comment below: --- Well I read a few comments here saying it was click-baity and such, and other comments pushing back hard against that saying it's a detailed, trustworthy, researched site with citations. So, I visited via an "about" link, then clicked through the menu to supplements (arbitrarily) then randomly to "creatine": lots of links in the claim-heavy content, but the two links I followed were to definitions, not to proof of the claims being made. At the head it gives a researchers name, says their work was reviewed. Looks great so far. >"Our evidence-based analysis on creatine features 746 unique references to scientific papers. " // Wow, I'm expecting a massive citation section. But, nothing, it's just a sales page, it doesn't _have_ citation supported information but it tells me it sells such information ... Am I missing something, people Googling "creatine" are looking for the info, not a sales page offering to hook them up to the info. If other sources have the info directly then that would be a huge reason that Google wouldn't rank this examine.com site highly? How many people google something looking for a for-pay resource that they, it seems, can't even sample first? I'm not googling looking for a site to sign-up with to get emailed a factsheet either, even if it's free (which is a common fraud that I'm hugely wary of). Ok, so now I'm looking at the questions, cool, click through - something about caffeine interactions with creatine, surely the link is to the cited scientific paper, nope just to another uncited page by the same person. I'm not impressed upon that this is a site that should be high in google rankings; it seems low value unless you're looking to sign up to a resource -- like if I search online for "Steven King novels" I actually want the list, not a link to a library I can sign up to in order to find out at some time in the future some of the novels that could be on that list. FWIW the summary given was good, readable, seemed like it might be true, but there's no reason to trust it at all. I'd rank it below even Wikipedia for the content I was presented. Whatever content they're selling behind those pages could be incredibly good, but that's not what SERPs are linking to so of course they don't rank for that, they rank for the shallow sales page with the same generic info on a million other pages.

AhmedF 7y ago
Uhh - what? https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/ https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/ - just scroll down. https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#effect-matrix https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#effect-matrix - that's not selling anything. https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#scientific-research https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#scientific-researc... - click on 'fully expand' - there's all your science + citations. And the references themselves have carrots next to each reference so you can click and see what is being referenced... Here is an example of what IS being sold: https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8e.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/erd/sneakpeek.pdf https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8... And that creatine caffeine page... https://examine.com/nutrition/does-caffeine-counteract-creatine/ https://examine.com/nutrition/does-caffeine-counteract-creat... - literally has 7 references right at the bottom. Again, with carrots to see where the claim is.

bageldaughter 7y ago

The core problem with examine, in my opinion, is that it embraces the attitudes that: 1. A wide range of subtle personal, emotional and health problems can in principle be solved/mitigated by taking supplements and unregulated drugs. 2. Positive effects from small-group trials are akin to mild recommendations to take a supplement, rather than to attempt to reproduce the effect in a larger trial. The very premises upon which people base their visits to examine and other sites is flawed. Examine has zero incentive to address or repudiate them. The success of their business is dependent on there being a perceived efficacy for supplements and unregulated drugs, and the idea that reading online about more varied and obscure supplements will eventually find you the one that fixes your problem. But for a lot of perceived problems, there will simply be no supplement-based solution.

data_required 7y ago
"But for a lot of perceived problems, there will simply be no supplement-based solution." [Citation needed.] This is an interesting question, actually- what problems is the research cited by Examine claiming to improve, which you have evidence cannot possibly be improved by the use of supplements? As far as I can tell, too, your critique of Examine is really a critique of scientific papers in general. If the scientific studies have a flawed premise, you are right that that flawed premise would carry over to Examine, since they cite lots of scientific papers. Which is sort of like critiquing Examine for not having God-like omniscience as to what is universally true and not true. This is not a fair critique. And I also think that a lot of criticisms of Examine and other websites basically want to absolve the users of all personal responsibility. I am extremely informed about health and supplements, and I have a ton of trust of Examine based on past experiences, and I also would never take its summaries as the gospel truth. I always check a lot of other websites, sometimes skim the scientific papers themselves, and then use a personal experimental protocol if I think an experiment is warranted. You must assign users some responsibility. (Although even if we hold users responsible, Google should not be giving higher search rankings to such comparatively crap websites.)
AhmedF 7y ago
1. This is literally untrue. We consistently say supplementation is last. Exactly one month ago: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz0tmWZA1CG/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz0tmWZA1CG/ 2. Yes, we know this. That is why we note # of trials, size of trial, size of outcome, and quality of trial. > Success of their business. Wrong. It's analyzing nutrition research. Here's an example: https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8e.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/erd/sneakpeek.pdf https://a99d9b858c7df59c454c-96c6baa7fa2a34c80f17051de799bc8...

CriticalCathed 7y ago

Perhaps we need government regulation to stop near monopoly indexes like these from curating results so heavily.

root_axis 7y ago
Why? If google finds that curating their index in a particular fashion aligns with their business objectives, why should the government dictate how they do it? It sounds like what we really need is a government maintained search index that is accountable to the people in a way that corporations are not.
- CriticalCathed 7y ago
  At the end of the day it's an ideological argument. Google has an almost immeasurably large influence on the public commons and society. In my view anything that has such a large influence needs to be regulated to ensure the public interest and good. Capitalism serves society which serves the people. In that order.
  - root_axis 7y ago
    > Google has an almost immeasurably large influence on the public commons and society. I disagree. Google does not have much in the way of meaningful influence over the public commons and any influence they do have is offered up voluntarily by the public to google. If google wants to curate specific content that is their prerogative and if people don't like it they should boycott and protest against google. Every single google product is non-essential unlike e.g. corporations that dominate food, real-estate, and medicine. If the people determine that access to an internet index is a human right, the government should create its own index instead of picking a particular corporation and effectively nationalizing its product. > In my view anything that has such a large influence needs to be regulated to ensure the public interest and good. I agree that tech companies need regulations, but those regulations should apply to all companies instead of being applied to companies that we personally disagree with.

intricatedetail 7y ago

Google has no problem promoting government sanctioned media outlets promoting lies about drugs e.g . That cannabis is a gateway drug or it makes your brain shrink. Hypocrites.

SpaceManNabs 7y ago

What is an alternative to Google search that has better search results than DDG? If I use Bing, will it use my data to customize my searches (I don't mind this too much anymore)? Google sucks now for technical, science, math, and philosophy searches... I haven't vetted or researched this at all, but I get a feeling that I am just getting advertisements or google sanitized reputation rankings on Google.

root_axis 7y ago
> What is an alternative to Google search that has better search results than DDG What's wrong with DDG results? I have found them to be pretty good, the results don't seem to be as sensitive to current events and viral trends but I can always find what I'm looking for. I do have to sometimes hit the "more results" button, but I definitely find myself on the 2nd or 3rd page of google particularly on technical or scientific topics.
- SpaceManNabs 7y ago
  Looking up astrophysics and ML stuff is usually pretty difficult. Same thing with Japanese folk tales (revenge plays of the 18th and 19th century) and poetry.

sak5sk 7y ago

As someone who casually came across Examine.com a while back, I left quickly simply because the website didn't seem credible. As others have pointed out here, the website's design (while looks nice) does not send all the right signals that this is a well-established research website. I know it's not good to judge a book by its cover, but online, the cover is everything. I know this sounds anal, but if they were to simply clean up the site a bit like by removing all the excessive icons and cleaning up their button text, they would come across as more credible. Perhaps if they came across as more credible, people wouldn't be leaving and google wouldn't get the wrong signals. Simple and quick list of changes that would make their site feel more trustworthy: 1. Remove most if not all of the icons 2. Do away with borders on non-white background - basically just make background white. 3. Tone down your button text. "I'm ready to learn" sounds really shitty and obnoxious. 4. Stop screaming with all caps buttons 5. Consider a different logo entirely. 6. Consider different color palette entirely 7. Do away with old button styles 8. Restore normal font size to sources - right now it makes me feel like you are hiding them. 9. List author credentials on every content page 10. Do away with ugly callout styles and excessive icon usage 11. Re-work all the weird "Scientific Research on ___" tabs so that they do not require so much clicking to find basic info. Overall, the site is just over-designed. I realize everything I say would make the site look more WebMD-like, but that's what triggers trust when it comes to medical info sites. Lastly, I fully expect to be downvoted for this as design is not something that's very respected around these corners of the web, but I felt it was important to make that point since this is a perfect example of a website that while looks great, does the opposite of creating a trustworthy browsing experience.

AhmedF 7y ago
Thanks - I will dig into this.

f4rker 7y ago

examine.com is definitely an authority site and should be ranked very highly.

raspasov 7y ago

Examine.com is rock solid in my opinion. Best summary of research (with direct links to each published paper) that I’ve seen. I often use examine.com directly without going through Google but I hope Google will realize they have made a mistake in this case.

raspasov 7y ago
P.S. I'm not associated with Examine.com in any way except for using the site regularly.

zaroth 7y ago

I will say, I miss the days when the first comment here would be “Paging Mr. Cutts...” followed by actual insight from Matt on what’s happening here! Is there any other double-digit employee at Google around now who can take up the mantle?

JimWestergren 7y ago
Even if there would be, is it even possible anymore? Or is the algo so controlled by AI and ML that it is not even possible anymore?

Ice_cream_suit 7y ago

The content seems reasonable. However, it looks really dodgy. The layout, titles of articles, illustrations and just about everything makes it look like part of a cheap ad farm.

8bitsrule 7y ago

I never use google. On searching Bing for 'nutrition supplement' I found examine.com on page 4. I also found the NIH's 'medlineplus' on page 4. It is certainly authoritative. So, in a way, that's a compliment. But apparently 'authoritative' is not the only significant factor at Bing. Yes, I found 'nutrition.gov' and 'fda.gov' on page 1, as well as 'wikipedia.org' and 'supplementwarehouse.com'. I suppose that 'authoritative' ought to be a primary factor in a search algorithm. But then, I think 'accurate' ought to be a primary factor in 'translation'. It's no surprise to me that machines are no better at distinguishing science-based authority than they are at translation. You have to consider the culture the machines have grown up in.

Yizahi 7y ago

On the other hand when I run "Astaxanthin" query in the DDG (I never searched for this item or other supplements previously) I see Examine result on the first page, 5th position from top. At the same time there are results from scummy resources on the same page: 1. Webmd 2. Wikipedia 3. Healthline 4. Mercola 5. Examine 6. Draxe 7. Drweil 8. Antioxidantsforhealthandlongevity 9. Amazon 10. Webmd Hard to say what should be a proper way to deal with misinformation but looking at human history it is probably not censorship, mostly because any and all censorship systems are abused and corrupted eventually.