Health related forums with decreased engagement

Community Building

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Health related forums with decreased engagement

RBrown is experiencing a significant decline in engagement on their health-related forum, despite an initial positive impact from Google’s algorithm update in September. anon48433008 suggests checking the forum’s top traffic sources to identify any previous strong sources that may be missing, which could account for the decline.

JimPas notes that Google, MS (Bing), Facebook, and Pinterest have reduced visibility for “alternative medicine” sites, and even some mainstream medicine sites, which may be contributing to the decline.

However, RGJ clarifies that RBrown’s forum is not an alternative medicine site, but rather an established patient platform. anon48433008 speculates that the decline in engagement could be a sign that patients are getting better, but suggests that analyzing traffic sources could provide more insight into the cause of the decline.

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Hello everyone,

It has been a long while since I’ve posted on here so I hope I’m doing this right.

I manage a health related forum and I’ve noticed a significant decrease in our engagement (posts, topics,new contributors, etc); I know the Google did an alogorithm update in September which has affected many medical related websites. However, it initially had a positive affect on the forum that I managed, but now the numbers have declined and I just wondered if anyone else has experienced something similar with their site?

Please let me know.

Thanks,
Reah

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This is my second attempt to help and I’ll try not to offend anyone

@RBrown you need to look at yoursite/admin/reports/top_traffic_sources

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and check a previous time with the current

when I do this for a year ago I see facebook is our second highest traffic source,
when I check now they are not on the chart

I am very much into alternative health options, we grow and juice our own wheat grass,
and I hope you share your forum that I could check out.

Good luck in any account with the decline I hope you can turn it around.

Robert

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Google, MS (BING), Facebook and even Pinterest have all either cut out completely or have greatly hidden any “alternative medicine” sites from their searches and/or platforms. Even sites that only post articles, research reports and scientific studies that are on the CDC’s, and the various US Gov’s health sites are also knocked out of searches if they reference anything that goes against “mainstream medicine.” Some sites can no longer be found on Google or BING - even though before September they would appear on the very first page of the search results. A few sites still appear, but on the 4th to 10th pages. Just saying… Remember: “Burn the books!” :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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A bit of relevant background info: RBrowns forum is not an alternative medicine site. It’s an estabilished fellow patients platform.

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That is certainly relevant, dwindling numbers are cause for concern to any admin, but with that info, maybe its a good sign everyone’s getting better? :man_shrugging:

I am interested to know if the traffic sources reveal any previous strong sources missing that might account for a decline, if not it will be mostly guessing, I do appreciate the admin graphs though :slightly_smiling_face:

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