Medic Update

Definition

The Medic Update is the informal name (coined by Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable) for Google\'s broad core algorithm update that rolled out in August 2018. Google confirmed a major update but did not officially name it "Medic" — the name came from the SEO community\'s observation that health (medical) websites were disproportionately affected, both gaining and losing rankings significantly. The update was not specifically a health update — it was a broad core update that happened to affect YMYL (Your Money Your Life) categories most visibly because those categories receive the most scrutiny under Google\'s Quality Evaluator Guidelines. YMYL categories include: health, medical, finance, legal, safety, news, and civic information — any topic where incorrect or low-quality information could significantly harm users. The update increased the weight of E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) signals for YMYL content: (1) Author credentials and attribution became more important for medical and health content; (2) Site-wide authority signals (not just page-level) for YMYL topics gained weight; (3) Sites without clear author credentials, medical review processes, or institutional backing lost ground to established medical authorities. The update benefited: academic medical centres, government health agencies, major established health publishers. It harmed: health information sites without credentialed authors, supplement and alternative medicine sites with thin or uncredentialed content, and general sites venturing into YMYL topics without expertise signals.

Why it matters for SEO

The Medic Update is the landmark case study for YMYL + E-A-T as a ranking consideration. Any site publishing health, finance, legal, or safety content needs: named, credentialed authors with verifiable expertise; clear editorial review and accuracy standards; about pages describing the site\'s qualifications; references to authoritative sources; and structured data marking authors (Person schema with credentials). These aren\'t optional embellishments for YMYL sites — they are ranking-relevant quality signals that core algorithm updates evaluate.

How DeepSEOAnalysis checks this

DeepSEOAnalysis checks author markup (Person structured data, bylines visible in the page HTML) for pages that fall into YMYL categories. Missing author attribution on health, finance, or legal content is flagged as an E-E-A-T risk. The audit also checks whether Organisation schema is present (institutional credibility signal) and whether FAQPage schema with medically accurate content is server-rendered for AI and voice search citation eligibility.