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Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

examine.com

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

#171

Post by pbhjpbhj »

AhmedF wrote: post #80
tallanvor wrote: post #49

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…

Let me address these: 1. No one links to them. You are welcome to google. Eg here: https://www.nytimes.com/guides/year-of-living-better/how-to-... - you'll see their entire supplement section is from our site 2. That is our one, and it's more of a play on 2019 and 19. If you read the article, you'll see it's no-nosense. 3. How exactly do I prove someone is real? A quick google search shows this guy: https://twitter.c…

Re 3. providing a bio and referencing their other work is a good start; as is linking to trusted sources, LinkedIn, the person's Uni or business resumé page, a "verified" Twitter account might work; if they're of note they may have a Wikipedia page ...

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

#172

Post by Semiapies »

data_required wrote: post #161
0xffff2 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Why not do some research yourself? What do you think are some other contenders for best websites to see compiled research on individual supplements (especially unusual supplements)? And once you've done this research, will you still believe that Examine's pages rarely deserve to be in the top 10 results on relevant search queries? It's easy to compare something to abstract perfection, and find it wanting. But if you…

It's the claim of you and others here that this is "the" best site on the topic online. It's up to you to back that claim up, not for other people to run around to get evidence to disprove it.

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

#174

Post by dannyw »

krisroadruck wrote: post #54
AhmedF wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our reputation is pretty damn solid - that's what makes this even more perplexing.

High profile edge-case where Google is clearly getting it wrong? Just talked to the partners at the search firm I work for and assuming you'd let us make a case study out of it, we'd be willing to take a look and potentially offer our services gratis for the prestige and referral business alone that a recovery of this magnitude is likely to drum up for us. Let me know if you are interested.

How can you help? It sounds like this is something that needs Google’s direct attention.

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

#175

Post by 1123581321 »

piva00 wrote: post #167
1123581321 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t matter. If a cursory visit doesn’t inspire confidence, users will back out and that will look like low engagement/low value to Google’s ranking analysis. It’s actually a more helpful analysis for this topic to do a cursory, cosmetic look.

So how you go by applying this reasoning to this very website where you are commenting? Hacker News would never be, for me personally, on the top of the list of websites that inspire confidence by its looks, it's only when you delve into it and realise the content is actually great that you can appreciate it. Such a shallow evaluation is quite strange coming from technical people who are used to mailing lists and all…

I don’t know how Google evaluates link aggregators. My comment was based on how Google evaluates content sites right now. I’m not saying it’s fair to Examine.com’s researchers and writers, as most of the replies to my comment appear to assume. I should have made that more clear.

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

#176

Post by dannyw »

nabnob wrote: post #31

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 narrowi…

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.

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

#177

Post by Ayraa »

puranjay wrote: post #42
Endy wrote: post #21

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…

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.

Search Engine Roundtable conducted a survey after the medic update, here are the categories of websites that were affected: https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.seroundtable.com/google-medi... (Health accounted for the biggest percentage but there were many other verticals that were impacted as well.)

There has also been several core algorithm updates since then that have caused ranking drops and volatility across the board.

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

#178

Post by AhmedF »

andreitp1 wrote: post #156

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…

Let me be clear - we have never bought a single link.

We get direct links similar to what wikipedia does - aka direct to a supplement.

For example, creatine: https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/

You will not find a more in-depth page on creatine anywhere on the net.

https://www.nytimes.com/guides/year-of-living-better/how-to-... - here's a simple example of direct links.

We're also considered the authoritative site, which is why so many sites (including spammers, sigh) link to us.

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

#179

Post by AhmedF »

tallanvor wrote: post #78
johnnyfaehell wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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? One of the reviews by professionals is John Berardi of Precision Nutrition if you're into nutritional research and can't verify him. Then, in my opinion, this site is not for you. You'll need so…

The question is twofold: 1) why should I trust him, and 2) assuming I trust him, how do I know he actually recommended this site? Now, for the first one, why should I trust him? He apparently earned a PhD, but his research credits seem to be minimal, at least in terms of what he lists on his own website. Second, he seems to be a co-founder of Precision Nutrition, which suffers from a lot of the same problems as Exami…

PN just sold for roughly $250,000,000. Which they bootstrapped for the past 18 years.

JB used to do the nutrition for guys like GSP (the MMA fighter).

JB is an advisor to Nike, Apple, Equinox, and more.

It's literally the least of his problems that you don't know who he is.

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

#180

Post by AhmedF »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #171
AhmedF wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me address these: 1. No one links to them. You are welcome to google. Eg here: https://www.nytimes.com/guides/year-of-living-better/how-to-... - you'll see their entire supplement section is from our site 2. That is our one, and it's more of a play on 2019 and 19. If you read the article, you'll see it's no-nosense. 3. How exactly do I prove someone is real? A quick google search shows this guy: https://twitter.c…

Re 3. providing a bio and referencing their other work is a good start; as is linking to trusted sources, LinkedIn, the person's Uni or business resumé page, a "verified" Twitter account might work; if they're of note they may have a Wikipedia page ...

Good idea!

Here's Kamal's thorough bio page: https://examine.com/user/kamalpatel/

Here's Kamal verified on twitter: https://twitter.com/zenkamal

Here's him on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamal_Patel_(researcher)

Here's Examine.com on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examine.com

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