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Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

examine.com

141–150 of 363 posts

Re: Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

#141
post #123
post #20

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.

The problem is who is examine ? Take this random page for exmaple. https://examine.com/nutrition/lemon-water/ It's written by some guy called "Wyatt Brown". Who is he? Is he a scientist? A doctor? A university professor. Oh - I don't need to worry about that, because: > Our evidence-based analysis features 42 unique references to scientific papers. Right then. Quoting papers makes you a reliable expert and able to ma…

I enjoy how you ask questions but never click on anything because it must fraud.

You can click to the about page to see who he is. And who edits the work. And how the editorial process is. "Wyatt Brown" is clickable.

The 42 citations are done directly after each claim, and the study is linked. Most sites just have a bibliography at the end.

You are just cruising here to pick a fight.

> Fraud

Lordy, I'm afraid to even consider what you do professionally.

Re: Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

#142

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

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]

Re: Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

#143
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is who is examine ? Take this random page for exmaple. https://examine.com/nutrition/lemon-water/ It's written by some guy called "Wyatt Brown". Who is he? Is he a scientist? A doctor? A university professor. Oh - I don't need to worry about that, because: > Our evidence-based analysis features 42 unique references to scientific papers. Right then. Quoting papers makes you a reliable expert and able to ma…

> Right then. Quoting papers makes you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health. Does being a researcher or doctor make you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health? It is very good to doubt papers. In doing so you are doubting countless scientists [many of whom perform poor studies] though. There isn't any thing epistemologically sacred ab…

> Does being a researcher or doctor make you a reliable expert and able to make claims about medicine and science and health?

Doubting people quoting papers, and doubting papers are two fundamentally different things.

Re: Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

#144

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 inst…

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.

Re: Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

#145
post #123
post #20

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.

The problem is who is examine ? Take this random page for exmaple. https://examine.com/nutrition/lemon-water/ It's written by some guy called "Wyatt Brown". Who is he? Is he a scientist? A doctor? A university professor. Oh - I don't need to worry about that, because: > Our evidence-based analysis features 42 unique references to scientific papers. Right then. Quoting papers makes you a reliable expert and able to ma…

Wait, how did you jump to the conclusion that it's clearly a fraud site? What's fraudulent about the site?

Relaying scientific results by the best of your ability without being a doctor or scientist is not fraudulent by itself. All mainstream media sites does this on a regular basis.

Re: Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

#146
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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…

They have certainly peddled the idea that "the algorithm" is what drives page rank.

Re: Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

#147
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.

Re: Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

They have certainly peddled the idea that "the algorithm" is what drives page rank.

[deleted]

Re: Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

#149
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I've come across the site before, but at first glance it doesn't look reputable at all. --I realize that looks aren't everything, but I see the following that look like red flags to me: 1. They show logs for news sources such as The New York Times, BBC, etc., but they don't actually link to those sites, let alone to articles that actually mention this site. 2. I see click-bait titles like "The top 19 nu…

Yeah you did a very cursory, cosmetic look at the site and judged it by its subject matter and web design choices. If you would've bothered to look under the hood, you would see that they reference tons of scientific sources and provide a level of transparency and knowledge-base to the sports supplement industry that is unrivaled. To be clear, There is no other site nearly as good as Examine for this subject matter.

>To be clear, There is no other site nearly as good as Examine for this subject matter.

To be clear, no one has presented any actual evidence to back that up yet.

Re: Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I've come across the site before, but at first glance it doesn't look reputable at all. --I realize that looks aren't everything, but I see the following that look like red flags to me: 1. They show logs for news sources such as The New York Times, BBC, etc., but they don't actually link to those sites, let alone to articles that actually mention this site. 2. I see click-bait titles like "The top 19 nu…

> 2. I see click-bait titles like "The top 19 nutrition myths of 2019". It's 2019. EVERYONE does this to get attention from people. > 3. Reviews by "professionals" that I can't easily verify. "Mike Hart, MD" is an example. Who is he? How do I know he's a real person? If he is a real person and a real doctor, how do I know he actually recommended this site? They actually cite sources. You really need to look at partic…

>> 2. I see click-bait titles like "The top 19 nutrition myths of 2019".

> It's 2019. EVERYONE does this to get attention from people

Even Google themselves https://www.blog.google/products/assistant/8-tips-stress-fre...

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