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academies
International Surgery and Ortho Conference
October 25-26, 2017 | Toronto, Canada
Case Rep Surg Invasive Proced 2017 | Volume 1 Issue 3
Is advertising on Google beneficial in searching for patient information on skin cancer?
Weiguang Ho, Christopher David Jones
and
Hilal Bahia
Ulster Hospital, UK
Aims:
Advertising is a major source of revenue for popular
search engines such as Google. Skin cancer is the commonest
form of cancer and can cause anxieties amongst patients in
whom it is suspected or diagnosed. We investigated whether
advertising found on Google during the search for patient
information on skin cancer was beneficial to patients.
Methods:
The term ‘skin cancer’ was searched using Google
Chrome, in ‘Incognito’ mode, with the cookies preset turned
off. Advertisements from the first ten pages of results were
included, without exclusion for analysis. We analyzed the
country of origin, type of organization and what information
could be gathered about skin cancer within the first 5 links. The
websites were then analyzed for their easy of gathering basic
information on skin cancer – types, prevention, symptoms,
diagnosis, staging, treatment – and whether evidence was
cited. Individual website traffic was gathered using SimilarWeb
and analyzed.
Results:
A total of 35 advertisements from 16 unique websites
were found in the first ten pages visited. The most frequently
advertised website was Macmillan (8 times). Nine websites
were of charities or non-profit organizations, 4 from other
search engines and 2 frommedia. The majority of the websites
wereUK-based, while the remainingwas from theUnited States
of America, Republic of Ireland and Canada. Basic information
on skin cancer was not available in majority of the websites
behind these advertisements. 18.8% (n=3) of the websites
were unrelated to skin cancer and 6.3% (n=1) led to webpage
that was not found (Error 404). In November 2016, the traffic
from internet users from the UK on advertised websites was an
average of 901990 visits each, and this represented 7.8% of the
total global traffic. An average of 2.8% of these visits was found
to be from users clicking on advertisement.
Conclusions:
We found that the majority of websites were
unable to provide sufficient information to patients regarding
skin cancer. This brings into question the benefits to the patient
of advertising by search engines. Advertising on Google results
in a significant number of visitors from the UK. It is therefore
important that accurate information is displayed on these
websites.
Speaker Biography
Weiguang Ho is currently working in the Department of Plastic Surgery at Ulster
Hospital, Belfast United Kingdom.
e:
ho.weiguang@gmail.com