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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: ht

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.
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    IMHO the mere fact a page links to relevant (to its subject) papers in reputable scientific journals should be considered a positive factor in a page rank computation.
zuuow 7y ago
So... Google is openly editorialising their results? They were already doing it with the carousel (google "american inventors") but if they are doing it with what seemingly is the list of organic results this is very, very troubling.
- yifanl 7y ago
  I mean, Google always was, even in the PageRank days. Even if you can perfectly recreate the numbers as to why so and so site is ranked higher in your system, its still your system choosing to rank so and so site higher.
  - zuuow 7y ago
    I see your point, but in this case they are blacklisting domains by hand because of their content, which they don't agree with. And that is very bad. Maybe it was my mistake, thinking that their organic search was holy, which no longer is the case it seems.
    - basch 7y ago
      I dont understand this point of view. Googles literal mission since inception was to rank results based on how good google thought they were. Their purpose is to editorialize results through the order they appear. Quality is defined buy googles subjectivity. Where did the idea of google neutrality come from? Google would be useless if they didnt blacklist what they perceive to be spam.
      - luckylion 7y ago
        > Where did the idea of google neutrality come from? From Google. They've stated time and time again that it's a magic algorithm and they don't hand-pick winners and losers. And it's a good thing, too, otherwise you're just inviting corruption. Top spots are literally worth millions, and if there's an small army of people that decide who ranks where, they are an obvious target for bribes. This doesn't look that hand picked, though, more like somebody didn't check what would happen if they rolled out some algo change and targeted way too broad.
qwerty456127 7y ago
Besides SelfHacked and Examine, what are some other good sites that have been censored?
sh1mmer 7y ago
Based on this link I wouldn't trust the critical thinking of the content of this site. > We also know about Google firing James Damore and their ideological echo chamber. They are already displaying their own bias based regardless of what they think Goolge's bias is. Damore was fired because he violated California labor law. But the post continues with lines like: > Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist ... > But it seems like they decided that there’s no way to algorithmically penalize certain sites — so instead they do it manually, behind the scenes, without telling anyone. Without any evidence of this what-so-ever. It's one thing to say "Google are not doing a good job of filtering out mis-information/commercialization without penalizing high quality information from smaller sites/institutions" it's another to say that this is a conspiracy from the "echo chamber bias" of their employees to suppress the speech of people who don't agree with them.
- gamzer 7y ago
  > Damore was fired because he violated California labor law. From Wikipedia[1] referring to a Guardian article: > The company fired Damore for violation of the company's code of conduct. Which is correct? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...
cik2e 7y ago
Google health related results are straight garbage these days. I noticed the change that dropped examine in the rankings as I frequently search for supplements. At the same time l, Wikipedia also tanked in my queries which is one of the sites that I’m almost always going to have a look at if they have a page on the topic. This seems tied into google’s expansion of their built-in snippets. That would be ok if they linked to the source but it feels like that’s true for only 1 in 20 of these boxes. I’m actually really frustrated with these changes and would like to start using an alternative. I like startpage but they use google search results so that’s not a viable alternative. Guess I’ll have to check out duck duck go’s Bing powered performance.

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.
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  IMHO the mere fact a page links to relevant (to its subject) papers in reputable scientific journals should be considered a positive factor in a page rank computation.

zuuow 7y ago

So... Google is openly editorialising their results? They were already doing it with the carousel (google "american inventors") but if they are doing it with what seemingly is the list of organic results this is very, very troubling.

yifanl 7y ago
I mean, Google always was, even in the PageRank days. Even if you can perfectly recreate the numbers as to why so and so site is ranked higher in your system, its still your system choosing to rank so and so site higher.
- zuuow 7y ago
  I see your point, but in this case they are blacklisting domains by hand because of their content, which they don't agree with. And that is very bad. Maybe it was my mistake, thinking that their organic search was holy, which no longer is the case it seems.
  - basch 7y ago
    I dont understand this point of view. Googles literal mission since inception was to rank results based on how good google thought they were. Their purpose is to editorialize results through the order they appear. Quality is defined buy googles subjectivity. Where did the idea of google neutrality come from? Google would be useless if they didnt blacklist what they perceive to be spam.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      > Where did the idea of google neutrality come from? From Google. They've stated time and time again that it's a magic algorithm and they don't hand-pick winners and losers. And it's a good thing, too, otherwise you're just inviting corruption. Top spots are literally worth millions, and if there's an small army of people that decide who ranks where, they are an obvious target for bribes. This doesn't look that hand picked, though, more like somebody didn't check what would happen if they rolled out some algo change and targeted way too broad.

qwerty456127 7y ago

Besides SelfHacked and Examine, what are some other good sites that have been censored?

sh1mmer 7y ago

Based on this link I wouldn't trust the critical thinking of the content of this site. > We also know about Google firing James Damore and their ideological echo chamber. They are already displaying their own bias based regardless of what they think Goolge's bias is. Damore was fired because he violated California labor law. But the post continues with lines like: > Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist ... > But it seems like they decided that there’s no way to algorithmically penalize certain sites — so instead they do it manually, behind the scenes, without telling anyone. Without any evidence of this what-so-ever. It's one thing to say "Google are not doing a good job of filtering out mis-information/commercialization without penalizing high quality information from smaller sites/institutions" it's another to say that this is a conspiracy from the "echo chamber bias" of their employees to suppress the speech of people who don't agree with them.

gamzer 7y ago
> Damore was fired because he violated California labor law. From Wikipedia[1] referring to a Guardian article: > The company fired Damore for violation of the company's code of conduct. Which is correct? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...

cik2e 7y ago

Google health related results are straight garbage these days. I noticed the change that dropped examine in the rankings as I frequently search for supplements. At the same time l, Wikipedia also tanked in my queries which is one of the sites that I’m almost always going to have a look at if they have a page on the topic. This seems tied into google’s expansion of their built-in snippets. That would be ok if they linked to the source but it feels like that’s true for only 1 in 20 of these boxes. I’m actually really frustrated with these changes and would like to start using an alternative. I like startpage but they use google search results so that’s not a viable alternative. Guess I’ll have to check out duck duck go’s Bing powered performance.