How Google’s Medic update affects health care SEO—and what you can do
A recent algorithm has hurt the rankings of many medical and pharmaceutical organizations—perhaps yours—and you might not even have realized it. Here’s how you can recover.
Changing algorithms can wreak havoc for your SEO results. Case in point: Google’s “Medic update.”
Of the 300 websites affected by the update in recent months, more than 41 percent were health, fitness and medical pages, writes Barry Schwartz. Websites of hospitals, nursing homes and pharma companies, along with informational medical webpages and websites selling health/medical products, saw an impact in their rankings after the update.
Organizations with a low E-A-T score saw a drop in their rankings, whereas webpages publishing verified and reviewed content saw an increase.
Wait—what’s an E-A-T score?
E-A-T stands for expertise, authority and trustworthiness , the three considerations that Google takes into mind in identifying relevant and reliable content. Content should be written and produced by an expert in a subject area, should be reviewed by an authority in a field, and should have a high level of trust (determined by reviewers, the quality of comments, etc.).
Here are three steps that health content publishers and organizations can take to improve their rankings in light of the Medic update:
1. Know Google’s guidelines.
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