Did Google change its algorithms for medical offices?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Brenda Malone: He is correct. E-A-T (expertise, authority, trust) is heavily applied to YMYL sites (your money or your life). Google has really been cracking down on this category lately, needing to combat the rise of false information. Over what period of time has this happened?
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  Jennifer Darby: Brenda Malone last few months
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  Brenda Malone: Jennifer Darby Is this a certified, Physician`s office, or something like natural medicine?
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  Karen Louise: Brenda Malone I`ve read this recently too.
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  Jennifer Darby: Brenda Malone my husband is a Board Certified Pediatric Dentist
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  Brenda Malone: It would be wrong of me to give a blanket answer without knowing more details. It could be something with the site-maybe there is blocking going on or something else technical; maybe the site is being targeted with negative seo, it could be so many things. Do you have access to your Google Search Console? Do you want to share the site URL?
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  Jennifer Darby: Brenda Malone I don’t think I have access to my search console. I bet I’m being targeted with negative SEO...there is nothing nw office in particular that has been using almost our exact business name as her SEO title tag and then putting her business name behind it i don’t mind sharing my URL at all. I could use all the direction I can get!www. AnchoragePediatricDentistry.comThanks for looking! ANCHORAGEPEDIATRICDENTISTRY.COMAnchorage Pediatric Dentistry | Dental Care for ChildrenAnchorage Pediatric Dentistry | Dental Care for Children
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  Michael Martinez: Jennifer Darby Negative SEO is very unlikely to succeed.
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  Jennifer Darby: Michael Martinez good to know! Thanks so much! I’m just at a loss
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  Brenda Malone: Your site is well-optimized. It ranks #1 in the Map Pack for "Pediatric dentist in Anchorage"What specific keywords are you tracking where you have lost ranking? Or, what measurement are you using?
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  Zain Ul Abaidin: Jennifer Darby You should introduce about yourself in detail in About Us Page and upload your medical certifications there. You should also mention ur personal social media accounts there and also link out this page from social media accounts.Google is very careful about ranking medical articles. You don`t have terms of service and privacy policy pages which are very important. Have them and link it in footer.Have multiple different service pages on your site which will increase chances of ranking on many keywords.Write 5 blog posts having 1500+ words every month on long keywords using Google Auto suggest where Quora, Pinterest, Reditt and irrelevant results are ranking as these results are easy to beat. Blog posts increase domain authority which helps in ranking your service pages.Have clear clickable phone number and contact us buttons and form on Service pages.You should also check your backlinks. May be you have made backlinks on spammy sites which might have hurt your rankings.
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  Michael Martinez: Medical office listings and Websites should not have been adversely affected by the changes Google made to health-related queries.Google has struggled to promote good health-related articles in their search results and they are still looking for a reliable methodology. But if people want to find a doctor`s office, they should be able to.
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  Michael Vincent Cubillas: There was a huge Google algo update two years ago I think that heavily affected medical related sites https://searchengineland.com/googles-march-2019-core...SEARCHENGINELAND.COMGoogle`s March 2019 core quality update: Stories of recoveryGoogle`s March 2019 core quality update: Stories of recovery
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  Michael Vincent Cubillas: On March 12, Google released an update to its algorithms that had a significant impact on quite a few sites across the web. Many, but not all, of the sites that saw improvements or losses, had previously been impacted by updates on Aug. 1, 2018 (Medic) or Sept. 27, 2018. Some sites that saw big changes were medical-related, but this was not an update that affected only medical sites. From what we can see, this change had an impact on many sites considered to be YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) sites.
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  Michael Martinez: It appears the site has undergone a SUBSTANTIAL redesign sometime in the last few months. I suspect that is causing your problems.
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  Jennifer Darby: Michael Martinez my site?
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  Jennifer Darby: Michael Martinez I’m not sure why it showed the amp site? Our site is www. AnchoragePediatricDentistry.comANCHORAGEPEDIATRICDENTISTRY.COMAnchorage Pediatric Dentistry | Dental Care for ChildrenAnchorage Pediatric Dentistry | Dental Care for Children
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  Jennifer Darby: Good grief! He has it going to amp site and not my actual site
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  Michael Martinez: Jennifer Darby I looked at an older image of your site from late last year. It`s very different from the site appearing on the Web today.
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  George G.: I have not looked deep into the site, but the design and structure are a bit off.It looks more like a dental blog rather than a dental office. You want it to look something like this https://www.dallasdental.com/ (not a perfect example, just a site i found trough the search). First thing you want people to see is that you are real practice with real doctors. Reviews and location help too. And mention all the services and how you can help.All i see is a bunch of blog posts on the home at the moment. If i was looking for a dentist, i opened your site and i see this content, i would immediately close it and go back to the search and open another result. This is a very bad signal for google.DALLASDENTAL.COMDallas Dental Group|Dentist in North Dallas, Addison, TXDallas Dental Group|Dentist in North Dallas, Addison, TX
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  Jennifer Darby: Michael Martinez this is the amp site. I emailed him and told him to fix it. The older image you are seeing is still our design and I’m not sure why it’s redirecting our main site to this amp site
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  Jennifer Darby: George G. It is redirecting to the amp site. This isn’t my normal website. I emailed my SEO guy and hopefully he will fix it ASAP
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  George G.: Jennifer Darby well maybe this is your problem right there.
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  Adam J. Humphreys: Why AMP though seriously?
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  Jennifer Darby: George G. I know he updated an Amp plugin but good grief how did I not notice this until last night
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  Jk Dove: Your site is painfully slow.
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  Jennifer Darby: Jk Dove it isn’t for me?
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  Jennifer Darby: Adam J. Humphreys what do you mean?
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  Adam J. Humphreys: Unless a journalism site I don’t understand why anyone would want an AMP site.
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  Jennifer Darby: Adam J. Humphreys I’m just doing what he thinks I should do... I’m not super familiar with AMP sites
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  Adam J. Humphreys: Jennifer Darby it’s a useless upsell with little benefit over page speed including changing site structure which generally I advise against unless something massively positive.
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  Jk Dove: Jennifer Darby You most likely have much if not all of your site cached locally to your browser, so it`s always going to be fast on subsequent visits. The goal is to make first-time mobile visitors see the above the fold in under 3 seconds and then a host of other metrics designated by The Powers That Be. I see that AMP is set up, though it didn`t trigger for me.Real Word Mobile Test: from the click to the load, it took 11 seconds to see the above the fold and 14 total seconds for interactivity. That`s not AMP at work, to be sure. AMP would be instant. Try this: Open your mobile device, then Open an Incognito Tab on whatever browser you use and Then visit your site. You`ll see what I mean then.