[jgmmo]

Yeah you did a very cursory, cosmetic look at the site and judged it by its subject matter and web design choices.

If you would've bothered to look under the hood, you would see that they reference tons of scientific sources and provide a level of transparency and knowledge-base to the sports supplement industry that is unrivaled.

To be clear, There is no other site nearly as good as Examine for this subject matter.

[Waterluvian]

I checked out examine.com and it's not as bad as the previous comment had me expecting. But it still looks like a boilerplate front page that I would pretty much immediately back out of and keep looking.

I'm not a fan of "don't judge a book by its cover." The purpose of the cover (other than to keep garlic mayo off the pages) is to be judged.

It's at the peril of the website to have such good content diminished by poor window dressing.

[JohnJamesRambo]

I’ve never gone to examine.com directly. I always get there by a google search of whatever supplement or nutrient I am researching (vitamin D examine) and it’s one of the the only places that give peer reviewed and objective and honest info about them. Their “Human Effect Matrix” tables are invaluable.

https://examine.com/supplements/vitamin-d/

[joveian]

IMO, their Human Effect Matrix is the worst part of the site and often misleading, although the list of studies it links to relating to a particular aspect is sometimes helpful. The long description with references is helpful. I often go to examine.com directly and search from there since they often seem to not rank all that high on DDG and most general search results are not worth looking at (sometimes general search engines can be helpful to locate info about a more specific topic).

The four resources I've used the most when researching supplements are Google Scholar (sorry to say in this context that they are the most helpful and the reason I can't fully quit Google, although Google seems to have finally stopped making me log in to use it), Ray Sahelian's site (I'd avoid his supplements and books but the site has some good info, mostly lists of studies and some first hand reports of negative effects, and he encourages lower doses of many things), Wikipedia (mostly to find references as actual text on the page is too often inaccurate although it varies and some pages are good quality), and Examine. For the few things that the Linus Pauling Institute[0] at the University of Oregon has pages on they seem to have the best quality general summary and some helful references. There is usually surprisingly little overlap of references between these different resources so checking them all for everything seems like the best plan.

[0] https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/nutrient-index

[sdoering]

There is a (German) tool for evaluating the quality of websites regarding nutritional information.

The QWEB tool[1]. It might help in comparing the neutrality and quality of different sites. I stumbled upon it when my SO started to study again after so many years in a dreadful job.

[1] https://www.ernaehrungs-umschau.de/fileadmin/Ernaehrungs-Ums...

[zadkey]

Yes, but let's compare Examine.com to let's say Forbes.com

When you read an article at Forbes, you are assaulted by scrolling ads, banners and other stuff from every direction. The appearance and experience is chaotic and clingy.

If we are going by appearances, why should Examine.com have worse search indexing than Forbes articles?

Here is an example from both: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2019/07/25/a-billio...

https://examine.com/supplements/beta-alanine/

[squarefoot]

Ublock Origin + uMatrix + Privacy Badger + Disconnect will make the Forbes page appear as it should be: a white page with almost nothing but the article visible.

I sometimes attempt to surf the web without those extensions just out of curiosity, and I promptly turn them back on in horror. As of today I couldn't imagine living without them; I would rather stay offline than experiencing the awful mess nearly all web pages turned into after the 2K era.

[1123581321]

That doesn’t matter. If a cursory visit doesn’t inspire confidence, users will back out and that will look like low engagement/low value to Google’s ranking analysis.

It’s actually a more helpful analysis for this topic to do a cursory, cosmetic look.

[nwienert]

Except that examine is an excellent site, and their cursory look was actually more of a "motivated reasoning look". If you land directly on an examine page for a supplement, it's quite clear the site is really well done.

I'm a designer as well, not just a developer, and it's layout is really well done: clean, straightforward, clearly presented, and the data is easy to find. They link to studies and always err on the side of caution in their descriptions.

[tr3ndyBEAR]

They also recently went through a redesign and I think it's really clean. But yeah, idk about their homepage and stuff, but go on any of their pages for a specific supplement and every sentence is thoroughly cited. It's also a great resource for finding relevant studies if you wanna do your own research.

[jonas21]

> They also recently went through a redesign

In my experience, this is often the cause of mysterious drops in search ranking. It's very easy to inadvertently introduce changes that negatively impact your ranking without even noticing.

At a quick glance, I noticed that many articles on examine.com link to hundreds of external references (e.g. more than half the page of https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/). In Internet Archive snapshots from before the redesign, these have the rel="nofollow" attribute, but on the current site, they do not. I'm not saying that's the cause, but it might be worth looking into exactly what changed in the redesign.

[AhmedF]

We removed rel=nofollow AFTER the rankings went down.

[andy_ppp]

There are almost always drop offs when you redesign and Google reevaluates your content, sure add back in no follow if you like but Google is really clever. It sees every page on the site has changed to something else; if that is a recent change we’ll go with Occam’s razor here.

[tr3ndyBEAR]

I guess I meant recent as in about 3 months ago. But hey maybe you should notify them of the issue

[walshemj]

Ah a redesign - I wonder if they had some migration issues it is possible to tank your traffic if you don't know what your doing.

[AhmedF]

Nope - if anything traffic slightly went up after it went live.

[dylan604]

except, how does one just magically land one of these specific pages? usually, that would be from a search result page, but that's the point of the post. after that, it's using their site's main landing page, and then browsing/searching/etc. so the main page still has to be usable, and not just the individual articles

[AhmedF]

With the big search box right on the homepage?

[dylan604]

Not everyone is being hostile. I think you've been beat up on this thread, but I wasn't being aggressive to you. I quite clearly stated that you use the search page on the landing site to find stuff locally. The original post was specifically about not getting results in search engines, and that's what I was attempting to support.

For me, I've never even heard of the website in question. Why would I, as it's not a field of interest for me. However, if I were to search for it, it would be a search engine result, not a search field on some website I have never knew existed.

[piva00]

So how you go by applying this reasoning to this very website where you are commenting?

Hacker News would never be, for me personally, on the top of the list of websites that inspire confidence by its looks, it's only when you delve into it and realise the content is actually great that you can appreciate it.

Such a shallow evaluation is quite strange coming from technical people who are used to mailing lists and all sorts of badly designed (or at least aesthetically unpleasing/neutral) pages...

[1123581321]

I don’t know how Google evaluates link aggregators. My comment was based on how Google evaluates content sites right now. I’m not saying it’s fair to Examine.com’s researchers and writers, as most of the replies to my comment appear to assume. I should have made that more clear.

[AhmedF]

They actually have published guidelines, and we meet them 100%.

[1123581321]

Indeed. I sincerely hope they improve the situation. A favorite site of mine, Metafilter, went through something similar a few years ago. Google cracked down on user-generated content too broadly, similar to here, and they have had a tough time recovering despite their care to follow the guidelines. It’s frustrating to see it happen again.

[AhmedF]

Yup! We even mentioned MF in our blog post.

[bob457]

I think HN follows the aesthetic, to a good extent, of a sparse text based doc page. Those kinds of sites rank high in my personal trustworthiness rubric.

The more something has been “designed”, the more the sight falls into the untrustworthy category, barring substantial evidence to the contrary.

[inetknght]

> Hacker News would never be, for me personally, on the top of the list of websites that inspire confidence by its looks, it's only when you delve into it and realise the content is actually great that you can appreciate it.

Other than the whole unchangeable orange theme, I think it's fairly easy to intuit.

[rfrey]

>unchangeable orange theme

“Topcolor” setting on your profile page

[inetknght]

Ahhhh that's what that does lol

[thfuran]

>. If a cursory visit doesn’t inspire confidence, users will back out and that will look like low engagement/low value to Google’s ranking analysis.

But that has no bearing on whether the site is actually presenting comprehensive or accurate information.

[benj111]

That's not the parents point though.

If users act as though it's a dodgy site, how is google supposed to know whether it isn't? You could argue that the wrong heuristics are being used, I'm not sure the technology is there to do it any other way though?

[tripzilch]

That's not the user acting as though it's a dodgy site, that's the user acting "learning is hard! let's go to youtube".

If you are actually doing research on some subject and are actually prepared to read and obtain new knowledge then yes, your cursory first look is going to be about the content and sources/references, and if you're still going to bounce on the looks then either you're not really trying or you are still just looking for a simpler bite sized easy answer (which pretty much do not exist in this field of science).

By that logic, Google could penalize every site that has in-depth knowledge about some subject.

And now that I think about it, these are EXACTLY the kinds of websites I've been missing from the Google search results in the past years. Most people first stop for "in-depth" knowledge would be Wikipedia (try defending THAT one, 6 years ago ...) and if you really want to, maybe that PDF of a publication is not behind a paywall. The web used to be full of pages that just were made by people crazy smart about a subject and they wrote about the thing they love ...

Just for illustration, I went through my old bookmarks, the original link was dead but the page still exists: http://gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com/engl/index.html Just browse a few pages and see what a quality site it is. It even has each page in both Germand and English.

This page used to pop up all the time when you searched for spices way back in the first half of the 2000s. Try googling "fenugreek" now and cry ...

And the majority of this quality content is not even ad supported at all. That is the worst part. So many people seriously argue that you need ads to support the internet. Well, THIS is the internet that I want, the good one, the promised internet. And look at that "fenugreek" search result page again, it's being fucking buried by this shitty ad supported internet of hollow articles about "fenugreek health benefits". THAT is the internet you get, you support by supporting ads. For every starving quality journalist at the news websites that argue they have to serve you megabytes of adtech with a two paragraph article, there are a thousand regurgitated content farm bullshit sites, easily consuming the vast majority of this internet advertising pie ... it's like cheering on mass murder because the obituaries make such nice haikus some times.

[petra]

>> low engagement/low value to Google’s ranking analysis.

Measuring engagement is great for shallow content, if you even can call it that. We see that all across the net.

But high-value, in-depth knowledge, is very often relatively boring.

[m00x]

How do you know this is what Google uses to determine how accurate the information is? Assumptions here are worthless since all they do it lead towards uninformed theories.

Examine.com is a very trustworthy website with good research, unbiased information and very good citations that are summarized in a scientific way.

Regardless of the heuristics they use to determine misinformation, they definitely messed up here and it should be re-evaluated.

[walshemj]

That is one of the guidelines for YMYL sites unfortunately if you work in "dodgy" areas like insurance.

A few years ago some of the mega UK insurance brands got into major trouble with google. I wont mention any names but directly afterwards they started using cute animals - obviously Sergi had being doing some naughty Black Hat SEO

[basch]

If a cursory look dismisses a good site, the person looking doesnt have accurate skimming and scanning skills. Judging trustworthiness is probably one of the hardest skills on the web. It takes immense amounts of practice. Like many other skills, its probably one where people are over confident in their own abilities.

[bob457]

This xkcd provides a surprisingly effective metric:

https://xkcd.com/1301/

[0xffff2]

>To be clear, There is no other site nearly as good as Examine for this subject matter.

To be clear, no one has presented any actual evidence to back that up yet.

[data_required]

Why not do some research yourself? What do you think are some other contenders for best websites to see compiled research on individual supplements (especially unusual supplements)?

And once you've done this research, will you still believe that Examine's pages rarely deserve to be in the top 10 results on relevant search queries?

It's easy to compare something to abstract perfection, and find it wanting. But if you compare things to actual real alternatives, it's often easier to get a more realistic perspective. (General life principle, in my experience.)

[Semiapies]

It's the claim of you and others here that this is "the" best site on the topic online. It's up to you to back that claim up, not for other people to run around to get evidence to disprove it.

[data_required]

Also, it would be good to get back to the main topic of the blog post. Even if Examine is normally only 10th best, they should be appearing on Google's first page of web results.

I do happen to think that Examine is the best (usually). But even if you disagreed, probably if you did a thorough bit of research comparing them to alternatives in this important search space, you would agree that they are better than most of what is ranking ahead of them.

[JamesBarney]

Here's some evidence. Anyone who has spent enough time researching supplements, that they could even conceivably name a better supplement site has agreed examine is the best.

And the only people who disagree are people who never done any serious supplement research

If you have a bunch of hockey fans arguing Wayne Gretzky is the greatest hockey player of all time against a bunch of people who've never watched a game and can't name a single hockey player it's pretty obvious who's right.

[Semiapies]

Except, of course, people have actually heard of Wayne Gretzky, and many people not hockey fans even know what he looks like (or did during his career).

It's not like some random, sketchy Canadian guy shows up, saying he's not being treated as befits a great hockey player, and when people go, "Uh, are you a great hockey player? I've never heard of you,..", in response, a bunch of randos appear on cure to say, "What?! Prove any better hockey player exists than John Smith in the history of the game in any league!"

Or, put another way, a bunch of angry randos doesn't prove anything. You get those turning up for anything online, from raw food diets to hexagonal water.

[JamesBarney]

The difference being hockey is a giant sport, and supplement research is a very niche hobby.

I'm not trying to convince you supplements aren't bogus or even that examine is a great resource.

Just that the claim "there exists a better supplement site than examine.com" is a false one. Let me start with why do you believe this claim to be true or at least more likely than the opposing claim.

[data_required]

Why are skeptics like you usually so freaking lazy?

If Examine wasn't great, it should be quite easy for you to find literally just one source that was consistently and objectively better.

The task of the skeptic is quite a lot easier. For the the fan, it's a lot harder- a fan like me would have to literally track down EVERY single alternative and show it was not as good as the thing we admire.

All you have to do, as a skeptic, is find a single better source. Much easier to do.

But I'm willing to do some of your work for you.

Here is a list of the websites which usually rank above Examine:

WebMD (which openly partners with pharmaceutical companies)

Healthline (originally launched in 1999, it owns Drugs.com, Livestrong, Greatist, MedicalNewsToday)

VerywellHealth (partners with the Cleveland Clinic, started as an About.com company)

Hospital websites (such as UMMC, the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic, Sloan-Kettering, NYU, etc.)

Governmental institutions (NIH/Pubmed, CDC, ODS, FDA, etc.)

Other medical news sites (which are almost always owned by WebMD or Healthline)

Is any single one of those more credible and neutral than Examine, typically? Are their sources as comprehensive, and do they summarize things as cleanly and neutrally?

Does any one of them even have better moral incentives? Examine only makes money from selling informational guides, apparently. That sounds the best to me.

[Semiapies]

"Why are skeptics like you usually so freaking lazy?"

Because there are an endless number of fools, liars, and lunatics demanding that we do their work for them.

[data_required]

This is very simple, though. There appear to be two people competing claims here.

Me and other satisfied readers of a free website, claiming Examine is a great resource, and usually the best single resource.

And many of us have provided evidence- that they cite massive amounts of scientific papers, that they've been cited by the NYTimes and other media news outlets, the fact the post got hundreds of upvotes is its own evidence, the fact they don't sell supplements or make money from advertising, etc.

You (or other skeptics), saying it's not a great resource (while ignoring all evidence already provided).

And you are also providing zero evidence, despite the supporters of Examine providing a ton of evidence for why it is a high-quality and credible site.

By being skeptical, you are claiming something, right?

The claim you are making is much easier to back up. You literally just have to find ONE source which is usually better. We already did a lot of work, why can't you do some work?

And yet, you refuse to do that. You're being much more lazy than me. I've already tried things partly due to Examine's research, and I was satisfied with the results. And I paid nothing for those great benefits.

And then I shared my experience, for free, because I appreciate the help I was given.

All you have to do is find a single objectively superior source than Examine. (Or 10, if you want to actually address the original post).

I am not asking you to do "my work", which I have already done, I am asking you to do work to back up YOUR assertion.

Hell, I even provided you with some likely candidates to start your research, if you actually care to not be lazy.

[data_required]

And I want to explain why I am so passionate about this.

Resources like Examine are amazing for lots of people. And the fact that they are free and credible, is incredible.

So I hate it when people like you are incredibly lazy, only doing cursory looks at things, and then pretend that those of us who have done hundreds of hours of research are the lazy ones.

Not only that, but people like you are probably scaring off lots of people who need help, from one of the few credible resources in the online space.

To me, you are not only lazy, your lazy skepticism is the sort of thing which will hurt lots of people. (Maybe you don't do so much damage by yourself, but people like you absolutely do damage sometimes. Sometimes your skepticism helps people. But sometimes your lazy skepticism hurts people, too.)