In 2019 I posted an article highlighting how Google had recently got involved with big pharma and natural websites started getting demoted. Here’s what I said:
In terms of traffic, 2019 started off well. I began the year on 250k users per month. By anyone’s reckoning, for a guy who doesn’t know what he’s really doing, that’s an achievement. On every measure, people were enjoying my free articles and home-cure tips. I had low bounce rates. They were spending ages on my site and you can just about meet your half of the mortgage (not a full mortgage, you couldn’t do this and that together. Natural folk are poor, that’s just the way it is!).
Then Google initiated four algorithm changes over the course of 2019, the net result being the organic traffic to dogsfirst.ie (folk that find you by using key terms in Googles) fell by 70%. Nothing changed my side. I was still writing articles. Still directing traffic from Facebook. No major scandals. Business as usual here only now instead of going up I’m going down in steep ledges. From the front page of Google for many issues, I am ending 2019 down on almost all counts. Traffic more than halved. It feels like a lot of hard work has been stolen from me.
I’m not the only natural website being treated this way, we’ve all been demoted, thanks largely to Google moving towards Big Pharma.
Sadly, in 2020 it just got worse for us. I tried to work away at building my audience back up but again Google made 3 changes to its algorithm. Each and every time it resulted in my traffic plummeting. Check out the last one (attached). I wake up Monday morning, traffic cut in half. My article for 15 home remedies for itch in dogs was on page 1 of Google in the US. So many dogs suffering needlessly. That has been effectively removed. As have my articles on recurring skin, ear and gut conditions, all top reasons for visiting the vets, all with some very simply cures.
7 algorithm changes since hopping into bed with big Pharma and all 7 decrease my traffic drastically. Not once did I receive a beneficial jump in traffic.
All tinfoil hat stuff, of course, but here’s the effect on me. Writing articles for my site is not part of my 2021 plan. Like everyone else, I’m under pressure to keep the lights on here and shouting from a hilltop with nobody around me is rather pointless.
I’m lucky in that I have the book coming out and a few other irons in the fire that I can now, must now, focus on. But what of all the other tireless campaigners who do such things more from a general interest point of view, with the aim to simply help, to pass on their experience to needy owners of pets decimated by the current over-prescriptive approach to pet health (mirroring what is going on in the human health sector but with even less regulation)? What will happen to them? Exactly what is intended to happen to them – they will be starved out of existence. Alternative weirdos, return to your gloomy carnival tents you stupid hippy. Go post something on “Youtube” (as if any other forum is available to them!).
There is no space today – online, print media, television – for debate. Today we only get one side of the coin. Which is best because the people are stupid. You couldn’t possibly fathom “the science” behind it. You can’t be trusted to. “The Science” is handed down to a certain few in stone tablets by “Scientists”. Few are privy to “the science” and even fewer may meet, let alone debate with, its creators. All we need to do is TRUST “the science”, which is best administered via suppository by actors with skin in the game. Dare question “the science” and you are burned at the stake.
The truth is there is no trust in science, folks. It’s sort of the whole point in the subject. Trust is the antithesis of good science, as we pet owners know all too well. We are all learning to employ less trust and more grey matter in matters of our pet’s health. We are learning to become our own “scientists”, questioning, testing, asking to see the other persons “science” so you can compare it to yours. It’s not rocket…oh, never mind. The point is, you becoming sciencey is a dangerous concept due largely to the fact, as above, you are stupid.
At least they want you stupid.
Scientists deal in facts. We trust the data. In science, we publish our results as the data must be robust enough to stand scrutiny from every which way, including those scientists in the public realm. Why wouldn’t it?!
Good science welcomes debate. If your data and hypotheses stand up to a good kicking it moves from hypothesis towards scientific theory, or as many call it, “a fact”. But even then, these “facts” are constantly up for debate. Like the “fact” cereal-based crackers made by candy companies are “complete” and fresh food is actually dangerous to your pet!
It’s all about public debate. I wanted my site to be a place for debate. The real dietary cause of pancreatitis and kidney disease in pets. The downside of neutering. Are fresh ingredients dangerous? Let’s look at what the science actually says. I love that sort of stuff. But even that sort of debate is apparently not welcomed by our Google over lords. That has nothing to do with the fact Pet Pharma is now a highly lucrative market for big pharma. Nothing at all to do with that.
My book, Feedings Dogs (about feeding canines, sure, but also focusing on those in power pulling the strings) is going to DESTROY the other sides “facts”, of that I have little doubt. It pulls apart their science, strips it bare for all to see, and reveals to the audience the pillars of shit the whole industry is built upon. The science used by the pet industry is staggeringly bad. What we are seeing is a place where the same old tricks learned in the human pharma sector are applied, but with the breaks virtually off.
It will surely bring some furious reaction from folk with skin in the dry food game, and that is healthy. They might even score a few valid points of their own! I welcome it with open arms. Bring it on. Scrutinise my science and use your own to counter it. Meet me for a debate (ideally where the loser has to eat their food of choice for a month!).
Because I’m not going away. You’re not going to silence me. In fact, I’m really only getting started.
You can “trust” that.
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NOTE: If you want (relatively) independent search results, certainly for health, don’t use Google. Consider Ecosia (https://info.ecosia.org/). It uses the profit from your searches to plant trees (apparently). Since it began in 2009, it has planted at least 76 million trees. It also builds solar farms that cover the energy required to operate Ecosia itself. It’s part of the Microsoft Search Network, which includes Yahoo and AOL
