I think there is something wrong with Google result we see in Iran when we search keywords related to medical field especially when you search keyword that reflect business name like "orthodontist" (متخصص ارتودنسی), "endocrinologist"(متخصص غدد), "gastroenterologist" (متخصص گوارش),"dentist" (دندانپزشک) and etc.
Furthermore, SERPS for keywords that reflect a business service are impacted. For example, Leaving addiction(ترک اعتیاد), herniated disc (دیسک کمر), backpain (کمر درد), colon cancer (سرطان روده), scoliosis (اسکولیوز) and etc.
I have analyzed the SERPs and reached to the following pattern:
1- Many of private business sites like sites of doctors, private clinics, private health centers, nutritionists, medical equipment sellers vanished or dropped severely in ranking. We know it as we have saved films from the SERPs before Medic update. We film important SERPS in our company once a week.
2- There is a specific group of sites that we see in many SERPs. These sites are categorized as the following:
- Yellow page or Directory sites (especially when you search business name). for example, "payju.ir", "drdr.ir","drsiana", "daftartelefon.com", "doctoreto", "karajtabligh"
- General magazines that write about everything…For example, "beytote.ir", "namnak.com", "irangan.com", "Persianv.com","chetor.com","digikala.com", "bazdeh.org", "sarpoosh.com"
- News agency sites."irna.ir","isna.ir","mashreghnews.ir","jamejamonline.ir"
- Coupon sites. For example, "takhfifan.com" and "netbarg.com ".
- Sites of medical state universities
- Sites of academic medical journals affiliated with state universities
- Other sites with governmental affiliation.
- Video sites. For example "apparat.ir","tv5.ir", "tamasha.ir", "namasha.ir", "mp4.ir".
3- Three, four, five or six results in a row from one single domain specially video sites. It is against Query Deserves Diversity(QDD) . Google can't comprehend video completely. It shows videos that are uploaded by users on video site only considering title and description of the video not the content.
As you see many of these categories are heavy update, namely, they update their sites every day with high volume of new or copied content. The site that are not heavy update have kind of affiliation with the government.
Many SEOs say that this update is about E-A-T and google is trying to implement GRG (Google Raters Guideline). If the result is as what we see now, it is just an attempt. The result is worse. I do not know how Google dares to present such a bad results to users. Today is 13 August. 13 days after the new algorithm has been rolled out. Several days ago, Danny Sullivan confirmed on twitter that the roll out is done.
The reason why I strongly believe that the result is bad is based on GRG's E-A-T and user intent. Content that is written by an expert should get better ranking. But, who is the expert. Doctors and clinics are not expert? Many of these sites have author info, about us page, privacy policy page. However, Google has killed them. On the contrary, many of the magazines, yellow pages, news agencies do not have author info. Some of them do not have about us page.
In relation to user intent, what are the reasons why a user might search "endocrinologist" and what he/she expects Google to show. Before Medic update(1 august update) era, we used to see diversified result that included magazines, associations, doctors, clinics, universities, directories and …. Which one is better? A yellow page site that the owner has subjectively prioritized doctors or a doctor's site full of content written by an expert prioritized by Google. I feel Google has abandoned its responsibility to rank private businesses. Many of sites are showed are non-private businesses and general and are not categorized under medical and health category. Big percentage of users that search "scoliosis" do not expect to see academic researches. But we see three academic articles in page one for scoliosis (اسکولیوز). I read those researches. They do not answer user question and do not meet patient expectations. What do you expect google when you search "dentist". Don't you expect google to rank dentists…Now google shows articles titled "how to become a dentist" , "income of a dentist in Germany" and directories, universities…I know that Query Deserves Diversity. But what google presents now is genocide. I think it must be named "private health business genocide update". Google responsibility abandonment to rank private health businesses.
And some very strange results. You see some sites ranked #1 in search results that are good by no means. For example when you search "nutritionist" (متخصص تغذیه), you see drsaeedhosseini.com at page 1. A one-page nutritionist's site with no content. Unbelievable and shocking. This site has no backlinks. In meta title there is not word "nutritionist". There are two positive points although. In "about us" section, there is a link to a page of University of Tehran site, introducing his great cv. There are mentions on many pages on the internet that his name is followed by "nutritionist". With that said, we have many other's nutritionists that have great experience and expertise and their site have great content and many mentions but are vanished from SERPs.
