Google’s +1 button is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.” Users click +1 to publicly give links and ads their stamp of approval. Users’ +1s can help their friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search. Read Full Entry
Ranking in organic search is challenging. In the healthcare/pharma search engine results pages (SERPs) there are several sites that rank for most searches. Trying to rank for a brand is easier due to the brand.com, but you are still competing against the same handful of sites. There is the Google/NIH result that “takes” the top position, with Drugs.com, and RxList.com for brand names, and depending on the drug, Wikipedia, WebMD and MedicineNet.com. Another option to get a result you control in the SERPs are videos. Read Full Entry
Google is in a constant battle with spam in its index and the problem has seemed to be getting worse lately. The latest algorithm change is one of the largest in the last few years and targeted at “content farms.” Content farms are sites that produce a ton of web pages about many topics for the sole purpose of ranking well in search engines. Some content farms have even been accused of (and blatantly are) stealing content from other sites and publishing it on their sites. As content farms have grown, Google’s results have become less reliable and less helpful. A couple of content farms that have received the most attention lately are eHow.com, ezinarticles.com and Mahalo.com.
In response, Google released the latest update to get control of the content farms and raise more unique and helpful web pages to the top of the SERPs (search engine results pages). Google said that roughly 12% of all queries experienced a noticeable change in the latest updates.
Was pharma hit by the algorithmic change?
Google has announced that it is updating Google Social Search to include social media postings in the organic results based on relevance. Before this latest update, social results were posted at the bottom of the organic results. Below is an example of the new results page. The example shows a result for Matt Cutts (Google Search Spam Leader) when he posted about his trip to Mt. Kilimanjaro (third organic result down).
Google will also show when your friends are sharing links on sites such as Twitter that are relevant to your search queries. And finally, more control on what you share publicly and privately.
What does this mean for pharma? Read Full Entry
A recent study was posted showing that searching from a desktop computer and a mobile device saw an 86% difference in results. Most companies (both in Pharma and outside the industry) don’t fully appreciate mobile search and the amount of traffic that they could be receiving from it.
Consider the patient that just went to the doctor and was handed a new prescription. They get in their car and before driving to the pharmacy, search for information on the medication on their phone. Do they end up getting information on the non-mobile branded site or one of the other sites that provide drug information (Drugs.com, RXList.com)? Does your site even display correctly on mobile devices? Does your paid search advertisements display on the mobile version of Google?
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