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Is Dentistry in an Uphill Battle Against Dr. Google?

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During the February 2022 Chicago Dental Society Midwinter Meeting Dr. Gregory Psaltis gave an interesting talk titled “Dealing with Dr. Google.” Dr. Psaltis presented how nowadays patients are turning to internet searches to seek information on scientific topics and in particular their dental treatments. Based on what the patients find online this can cause them and their parents to challenge any recommendations. In the talk Psaltis said how parents of young dental patients these days are arriving at dental practices and don’t agree with the recommendations the dentist suggests. He presented four such scenarios including that parent’s do not want x-rays for their child, that parent’s do not want flouride for their child, that parent’s only want tooth-colored crowns—not silver (stainless steel) for their child, and that parent’s only want only fillings for large lesions and never any crowns for … Read more

Dental Drills Leading to Thermal Burns

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In the past a discussion of thermal burns occurring after dental procedures and in particular wisdom teeth removal has been made. In one post it was highlighted how such thermal burns can lead to teasing and unwanted nicknames. A few other cases of thermal burns are discussed on the wisdom teeth removal complications page. In the past a discussion has also been made about how search engines including Google and Bing present differing results for the keyword “thermal burn wisdom teeth” in their image searches in the post titled The Search Engine Battle: Are you Paying Attention?. Since that article was published in late 2013 and it is now 2020, over 6 years have passed and as such revisiting this is warranted. In the past in late 2013, Google had ineffective results for the keyword “thermal burn wisdom teeth” in … Read more

The Search Engine Battle: Are you Paying Attention?

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For those who may read Modern Dental Marketing you may have seen a post in September 2013 titled “SEO Warfare: A Strategic Plan for Dentists” (edit: this article is now no longer live). If you don’t read the blog, I encourage you to read that post and make a note of a key change brewing in the search engine battle. Just a short year or two ago, Google used to be mostly the game in town. Google used to control over 90% of the search market for the PC and mobile. Nowadays that number has gone down a lot. As of October 2013, Google controls 66.9% of the market, Bing controls 18.1% of the market, and Yahoo controls 11.1% of the market with Ask and AOL both also having a very small stake (see October Search Market Share: Bing Continues … Read more

Aggressive Dental Marketing Practices

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Several years ago I posted a controversial post titled Dental Practices of some Dentists Websites Online is Questionable. In this post I discussed how I am frustrated by website users who register on forums and post topics and reply to topics with a signature that includes an html link to their (or a client’s) website. I called this a questionable search engine optimization strategy. Unfortunately this tactic continues to rage on and I actively have to fight it off and know that other website owners do so as well. Recently, I have become a bit irrated by a particular website: wisdomteethremoval.com. This website essentially has the same domain name as mine teethremoval.com except it has a wisdom added on to the front. Now clearly I deem this website as in direct competition with my website and attempting to divert attention … Read more

Why People Who Google and Search Online For Health Information Just Don’t Get It

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I find the current state of affairs on the internet to be extremely disappointing and discouraging. Recent research by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project and the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) “…found that 80% of Internet users look online for health information, making it the third most popular online pursuit among all those tracked by the Pew Internet Project, following email and using a search engine.” The instance a person goes on the internet they are bombarded by conflict of interest after conflict of interest. Many young people today turn to Google to conduct searches to find information online (of course other search engines such as Bing exist). The way search works of course is to enter some keyword or keywords you have in your mind about what you want to search for.  Well this is when … Read more