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Why has examine.com disappeared from search results?

examine.com

291–300 of 363 posts

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

#291
post #106
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > 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. Nobody that successfully gets my attention does that.

The front page of BBC is filled with clickbait headlines every day

Oddly enough, I rarely visit BBC's homepage, or listen. to their braodcasts any more, for very much this reason.

And no, this isn't a "gummint news bad" opinion. Commercial is frequently vastly worse, and the travails of the industry have long been evident. But overt pandering is a brand-killer.

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

#292
post #230

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 si…

Thanks - I will dig into this.

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

#293
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhh - what? https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/ - just scroll down. https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/#effect-matrix - that's not selling anything. 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…

I was on mobile. I just re-checked. No citations show on the page I'm looking at https://examine.com/nutrition/do-you-need-to-cycle-creatine/ . Apologies, [on desktop now] the entire visible prose section of the page has no citations _visible_. The weird expanding section hides all the citation links and somehow _I_ missed the references at the bottom of the mile long page because scrolling down and following links s…

Thanks - I will dig into this.

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

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're clearly not familiar with the "burden of proof" principle. Go ahead, google it, especially given that you mention legal cases. The person who makes a particular assertion has the onus of proving the same. Like one of the previous posters said, we are flooded with people making bullshit claims of how something like homeopathy "works" because they know it from personal experience, and we shouldn't have to be the…

And actually, let's revisit the prosecution vs. defense analogy. The skeptic is really more in the position of the prosecution. The fans are really more in the position of the defense. The skeptic is basically saying the fans have committed a crime against truth. They are saying that the fans have something to DEFEND. (Hence, the fans are the defendants.) And the skeptics claim is much easier to prove. It is far easi…

You give skeptics a bad name. I am a skeptic yet I hold the belief that if you state the negation of a claim, then indeed you should support it with evidence. They did not do so.

I agree, allowing "skeptics" to make you prove everything is a waste of time.

I agree, examine.com is great because for everything I could find on it contained backed up statements on a single page. It is a great resource. I use it mostly for nutritional supplements.

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

#295
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an extremely circular conversation. Google writes the algorithm that ranks pages. They absolutely know, that if you search Disney, and Disney isnt the first result, they wrote it incorrectly. They also know their product has less value if it returns spam, which is why they fight SEO artists. They do try to distance themselves from "choosing" the top result for "best construction store" or "best news site" by…

> That doesnt mean they dont carefully craft the algorithm to return a relevant top result. I found https://medium.com/@mikewacker/googles-manual-interventions-... an interesting read on that topic. It's not just a crafted algorithm, but there are different algorithms and employees choose different algorithms for some queries if they/journalists dislike what the original algorithm considered most relevant.

I mean, that's how you'd train the main algorithm, right?

I'd fully expect to see these interventions fed back into the algorithm so Google can better predict "this search term is likely to be targeted by partisan or otherwise suspiciously motivated actors".

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

#296

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…

If you can knock a site out of Google with bad backlinks, then you could do that to your competitors as a sort of anti-SEO.

It’s definitely a thing https://ahrefs.com/blog/negative-seo/

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

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here's some evidence. Anyone who has spent enough time researching supplements, that they could even conceivably name a better supplement site has agreed examine is the best. And the only people who disagree are people who never done any serious supplement research If you have a bunch of hockey fans arguing Wayne Gretzky is the greatest hockey player of all time against a bunch of people who've never watched a game a…

Except, of course, people have actually heard of Wayne Gretzky, and many people not hockey fans even know what he looks like (or did during his career).

It's not like some random, sketchy Canadian guy shows up, saying he's not being treated as befits a great hockey player, and when people go, "Uh, are you a great hockey player? I've never heard of you,..", in response, a bunch of randos appear on cure to say, "What?! Prove any better hockey player exists than John Smith in the history of the game in any league!"

Or, put another way, a bunch of angry randos doesn't prove anything. You get those turning up for anything online, from raw food diets to hexagonal water.

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

#298

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…

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…

"How is the nationality of the lecturer (w/ a diploma) a relevant fact?" -If you are not familiar with the issues here I can't be that helpful.

The quality of academic institutions and systems varies widely on a nation by nation basis. This is the issue I guess, a site like this and you are claiming no difference between countries.

Note that many top US scientists come from other countries, so its not the nationality of the scientist that is critical but the system they operate within, and the issues with academic integrity in China, Africa and yes, Romania are reasonably well known. Even the US and UK have struggled, and have tons more resources (some struggles relate to their overseas programs).

Hiring your own graduates is sometimes considered a bit of a weak sign in academia as well.

It's the totality of all these factors, bogus "endorsements" by big name media orgs (BBC), medical doctor endorsements from overseas doctors that practice relatively niche medicine (cannabis practice), and scientific research that seems to take any paper written anywhere and treat it equally.

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

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're clearly not familiar with the "burden of proof" principle. Go ahead, google it, especially given that you mention legal cases. The person who makes a particular assertion has the onus of proving the same. Like one of the previous posters said, we are flooded with people making bullshit claims of how something like homeopathy "works" because they know it from personal experience, and we shouldn't have to be the…

Supplements aren't homeopathy. The research done on then and linked to on examine is scientific research. It's just not great scientific research, similar to the entire field of psychology. Also "supplements work really well" is a very different argument than this is the best website on supplement research. There is not a single person in this thread of 100's who can name a single source of better information on supp…

I'd say it's unprovable and that you should just accept that you cannot prove your claim. After all, you don't know every [X] and just this moment a new [X] could've been published, which is better than the one you claim to be the best.

Just change your scope to something provable if you want your claims to be believed by sceptics. For example "[X] is the best that I know." would work.

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

#300
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on mobile. I just re-checked. No citations show on the page I'm looking at https://examine.com/nutrition/do-you-need-to-cycle-creatine/ . Apologies, [on desktop now] the entire visible prose section of the page has no citations _visible_. The weird expanding section hides all the citation links and somehow _I_ missed the references at the bottom of the mile long page because scrolling down and following links s…

Thanks - I will dig into this.

I think it will serve well to do so, FWIW I'll definitely visit the site again now I have been directed to the depth/breadth of content you have there.
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