Medicine and Search Engine Results
After using the Internet for the past 15 years I think that yesterday was the first time that I ever can recall doing a search for the term medicine.
I do searches for the term chiropractic and chiropractic related topics many times each day but I can’t recall ever doing a search for the term medicine. People often tell me it must be really difficult to maintain a web site with a top 10 search engine ranking for terms such as chiropractic. For example, the popular web site planet chiropractic has been in Google’s top 10 search results since as long as I can remember. Most of the web sites appearing in the top 10 for that term have been there for quite some time with the exception of Wikipedia and maybe one or two other web sites.
I never really gave it much thought before but after someone mentioned it yesterday I thought if the term chiropractic was tough to rank for, then the term medicine could potentially be a really difficult term to get recognized in the top 10. I decided to do some research which I will share with you here. It is always important to remember that search changes all the time and the information I’m sharing here today may not be valid tomorrow.
I went to Google, the world’s most popular search engine, and did a search for the term “medicine.” (click on the term to the left to see what’s in Google’s results) Here is the list of the top 10 sites that appeared when I did my searching, along with some information about the web sites showing up on the list.
Search Term: Medicine
Position #1 - Wikipedia
Wikipedia is in position number one but I don’t know when they took over the top position. Although the Wikipedia medicine page does not have the highest PR on the list, it is in the top position. The Wikipedia page currently has a PR7.
Position #2 - MedicineNet
MedicineNet is a web site owned by WebMD. It was interesting to me to discover that WebMD is not listed in the top 10 when searching for the term medicine. From what I could find by doing some online research, WebMD Health Corp. (referred to as WHC) acquired MedicineNet, Inc. on December 24, 2004 for approximately $17,223. Less than three years later, that seems to me as an incredibly spectacular deal for the WebMD Corp. MedicineNet currently has a PR7 page rank value.
Position #3 - Medicine in the Yahoo! Directory
The Yahoo! Directory sits in position number three for the term. The top three search terms are often considered platinum, gold, and silver. I would imagine it would be a pretty massive feat for web site to move any of these top three out of their current positions. It’s nice to see that Google has Yahoo! listed as a resource when doing searches.
Position #4 - MedlinePlus ( a .gov website)
MedlinePlus is a United States Government web site owned by the NIH (National Institute of Health) and the National Library of Medicine. Of all the web sites I checked appearing in the top 10, medlineplus (along with another .gov) had the highest PR ranking, which was a PR8.
For those that don’t know, this is what a PR8 PageRank image looks like… 
Position #5 - DMOZ Open Directory Project
The number five position goes to the Open Directory Project also known as DMOZ. I would’ve thought that the open directory had been around for ages but according to whois records the web site was created in January 1999. Page rank for the medicine directory area was PR7. Here is some in info from whois…
Domain ID:D2914575-LROR
Domain Name:DMOZ.ORG
Created On:02-Jan-1999 05:00:00 UTC
Last Updated On:03-Jan-2007 01:21:39 UTC
Expiration Date:02-Jan-2008 05:00:00 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:America Online, Inc (R19-LROR)
Interestingly, on the DMOZ page for the term medicine, the top three directories listed were as follows…
Medical Specialties (4,804) — Surgery (2,238) — Alternative Medicine (5,325)
Apparently there are more listings for alternative medicine then there are for medical specialties.
Position #6 - National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health (www.nlm.nih.gov)
In position number six was another United States government web site. This one was the national library of medicine, the same branch of government that owns the web site in position number four. This web site also has a PR8 page rank value.
Position #7 - eMedicine
According to the web site, eMedicine features up-to-date, searchable, peer-reviewed medical journals, online physician reference textbooks, and a full-text article database. This is another medical web site that was purchased by WebMD Corp. According to information I could locate on the purchase, the web site sold for around $25,195 and it was acquired in January of 2006. Currently this web site has a PR7 Google page rank.
Position #8 - The www virtual library biosciences medicine (www.ohsu.edu/cliniweb/wwwvl/)
This web site really has quite a long URL and it’s impressive to find them holding position number eight for this particular search term. The web site is owned by Oregon Health Sciences University and it is the only educational (.edu) domain appearing in the top 10 list. The URL which is listed above is at a current page rank of PR7.
Position #9 - www.md-journal.com
Position number nine is a web site owned by a major health-care book publisher called Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. According to the description tag, the web site is a “Bimonthly journal covering the latest results in clinical investigation relevant to hospital and office practice.” When I checked the web site they were using session ID tags so page rank was not appearing. The web site displayed a PR of zero.
Position #10 - Google Directory - Health > Medicine
Google’s own directory is holding position number 10 for the search term medicine. When I checked the category listings, there were 6308 listed forAlternative Medicine and 66 listed for Basic Sciences. The full URL is: www.google.com/Top/Health/Medicine/ and the Google directory page had a PR value of 7.
Among the things that I thought were interesting was that the number one position was held by a page that can be edited by anyone with an Internet connection. The number two page and number three page were owned by commercial entities, one doing business specifically in the field of medicine. There were two government web sites and to web sites owned by the Web MD Corp. appearing in the top 10. WebMD was the only commercial entity focused in the field of medicine making it to the top 10 list.
Interestingly, there were no drug companies on the top 10 list. The American Medical Association is also absent from the list. Also, the United States government was running a Google adwords campaign warning of the risks of purchasing medicines online. I also saw a contextual ad for MSN, advertising their medical directory pages.
Maybe I’ll check back on this topic in a year or so. Thanks for reading and best of health to you!
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This search engine related article was supplied by Los Angeles Chiropractor, Dr. Michael Dorausch. This chiropractor has authored more than a thousand online articles for websites such as Planet Chiropractic, a leading online chiropractic news source. He has also been instrumental in putting hundreds of hours of chiropractic audio and video content online for the world to listen to. Dr. Dorausch has an extensive knowledge in computer programming technologies, social networking, Internet Web development, and server administration. He is the only chiropractor to be a member of the Media Entertainment and Technology Alliance (METaL).
Currently 17 Chiropractic Schools in USA
While there have been hundreds of chiropractic schools opened and closed during the 1900’s, there are currently only 17 in the USA that are accredited for chiropractic licensure.
The seventeen US chiropractic schools include Palmer Chiropractic college, which was the first chiropractic school to open (in the early 1900’s) as well as Palmer Chiropractic College Florid, one of the newest chiropractic colleges in the nation.
There are two chiropractic schools in Canada and several others throughout the world. South Africa now has two chiropractic schools. A school of chiropractic recently opened in Mexico City, Mexico and there are schools located in New Zealand, the UK, Japan, Australia, and a few other countries.
Chiropractic has been taught in the USA longer than in any other country with Palmer being the first school to open (Davenport, Iowa circa de 1900).
There are 4 chiropractic schools in the state of California, more than exist in any other state. It comes as no surprise that there are more California chiropractors practicing chiropractic than there are in any other state in the USA.
Not sure which state has the 2nd largest popular of chiropractors but I would expect it is either New York, Florida, or Michigan. I’ll get some details and post them to these pages when I have more info.
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This page authored by Dr. Michael Dorausch, a Los Angeles Chiropractor