ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2020
Google Medical Update: Why Is the Search Engine Decreasing Visibility of Health and Medical Information Websites?
Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Understanding Online Health Information Consumption Through Web Analytics of the Italian Society of Pharmacology Magazine: 3-Year Descriptive Analysis.JMIR formative research · 2026Article
- How Reliable is eHealth information on dental care in head and neck cancer? A quality evaluation.BMC oral health · 2026Article
- Patient Education in Bariatric Surgery: Can Artificial Intelligence-Based Chatbots Bridge the Knowledge Gap?Journal of obesity · 2026Article
- Evaluating Perceptions of the CANreduce 2.0 eHealth Intervention for Cannabis Use: Focus Group Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Article
- Maximum generable interest: A universal standard for Google Trends search queries.Healthcare analytics (New York, N.Y.) · 2023Article
- Review
- Malaysian Public Interest in Common Medical Problems: A 10-Year Google Trends Analysis.Cureus · 2022Article
- Preferences for Accessing Medical Information in the Digital Age: Health Care Professional Survey.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Using the Google™ Search Engine for Health Information: Is There a Problem? Case Study: Supplements for Cancer.Current developments in nutrition · 2021Article
- Seasonality of Back Pain in Italy: An Infodemiology Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- What is the UK Public Searching for? A Correlation Analysis of Google Trends Search Terms and Cosmetic Surgery in the UK.Aesthetic plastic surgery · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The Google search engine answers many health and medical information queries every day. People have become used to searching for this type of information. This paper presents a study which examined the visibility of health and medical information websites. The purpose of this study was to find out why Google is decreasing the visibility of such websites and how to measure this decrease. Since August 2018, Google has been more rigorously rating these websites, since they can potentially impact people's health. The method of the study was to collect data about the visibility of health and medical information websites in sequential time snapshots. Visibility consists of combined data of unique keywords, positions, and URL results. The sample under study was made up of 21 websites selected from 10 European countries. The findings reveal that in sequential time snapshots, search visibility decreased. The decrease was not dependent on the country or the language. The main reason why Google is decreasing the visibility of such websites is that they do not meet high ranking criteria.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.