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What Is Google Medic? Definition, Factors, and How to Fix It

Last updated: Aug 07, 2024

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Have you ever noticed a shift in search results for health, finance, or legal topics? You might have encountered the impact of Google Medic!

This mysterious update rolled out in August 2018, significantly impacted websites in Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) niches.

Let's learn more about what Google Medic is, its factors, and how to fix it in this article.

What is Google Medic?

In 2018, Google released an algorithm named Google Medic. The name itself does not indicate its impact on the content that is related to the medical field only. In fact, the algorithm hits YMYL website pages.

What are the YMYL pages? YMYL stands for Your Money, Your Life. Such content generally discusses well-being and financial issues as well as their impacts on users’ daily lives. Usually, YMYL pages talk about topics like:

Financial
Money transaction
Medical information
Legal information
Latest news
Public information

Why Do YMYL Pages Get Hit by Google Medic?

The purpose of applying the Medic algorithm is to emphasize and improve the level of expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) of pages. It can be said that E-A-T of a page can have an effect on the well-being and happiness of users who come upon it.

Content that prioritizes E-A-T becomes the priority of the Medic algorithm itself. In other words, pages that contain information of low E-A-T or none at all can be removed from the highest position on the SERP. In doing so, Google wishes that every article could be written by experts.

As an example, articles containing medical information should be written by individuals or organizations with expertise in the medical field. Therefore, the quality of the article and its content can be accounted for scientifically and prevent misinformation.

The Importance of Search Intent for Google Medic

The appliance of the Medic algorithm is done to fulfill users’ needs when it comes to surfing the web. In this case, matching the results with users’ search intent becomes the main priority of the use of the algorithm.

To apply this algorithm, Google sees the quality of the searches by exploring websites and rates them based on its manual. One of the updates from the Medic algorithms states that the rating is done by considering the beneficial purpose of the page itself.

The raters are asked to give a rate by examining the benefits of the content on the website pages. It is related to the search intent and its connection with the information being displayed to users.

With the Medic algorithm, the search engine can improve the level of accuracy by displaying the most relevant results according to users’ intents. By doing so, Google hopes to see high-quality and trusted content in the highest position on the SERP.

How to Fix Issues Caused by Google Medic Update

The issues caused by the Medic algorithm can be seen by the website’s performance drop. In general, certain pages will have lower rankings on the SERP. To solve such a problem, you can try several methods to get your website running normally again.

There are several basic principles that must be followed in order for the website to operate properly, which are:

Prioritize making content for users, not for search engines.
Avoid black hat tricks to increase your page ranking on the SERP.
Do not make clickbait articles.
Showcase your website’s uniqueness by making it different from the rest.

To prevent your website from getting hit by the Medic update, you can also monitor its performance routinely. Make sure to check which pages get hacked and which ones rank low. If you find content that can potentially impact the performance of your website, then you can remove it.

Other than that, prevent certain tricks like cloaking and doorway pages to increase the traffic to your website. It is better to evaluate the content and optimize every page according to SEO principles so your website gains traffic organically on the SERP.