Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola
July 14, 2025
Story at-a-glance
· Google slashed traffic to Mercola.com by 99.9%,
replacing years of trusted content with pharma-backed search results that
promote junk food and drugs as "healthcare" solutions
· A new term, “nonaginate,” describes Google's tactic
of wiping out 90% or more of alternative health websites’ visibility — a
practice now threatening hundreds of holistic sources
· Under the guise of safety,
Google uses vague policies like EEAT and YMYL to bury licensed doctors and
researchers who question mainstream pharmaceutical narratives
· Google's so-called “quality
raters” depend on Wikipedia for judgments about credibility — even though its
anonymous editors openly oppose natural health and block factual corrections
· To protect your health
freedom and privacy, I recommend ditching all Google products — from search to
Gmail — and switching to platforms that respect your data and independence
Have you noticed how it's getting more challenging
to find non-mainstream health info in your search results lately? That's not your imagination
— it's a deliberate tactic employed by Google to control the information you
see. They're targeting websites that question pharmaceutical orthodoxy or
promote natural approaches to health, even those that are run by licensed
practitioners, researchers, and authors with longstanding reputations — myself
included.
I've been
sounding the alarm on Google's monopoly for several years now, and how they're
gravely endangering the free-flow of information, particularly in the health
industry. Google views alternative health as a threat to Big Pharma, and uses
its search ranking system to severely reduce natural health websites'
visibility and accessibility to the general public.
Video Link : https://youtu.be/lBHurtuxG7o
'Nonagination' — Google's
Attempt to Suppress Alternative Health Information
In his Substack
page, Bill Dembski, a researcher, design theorist, and mathematician, wrote an
extensive exposé on "the evilization of Google,"1 and how this
nefarious company strategically dismantled the reach and visibility of
alternative health websites, including Mercola.com. Dembski introduced the term
"nonaginate" to describe a tactic that goes far beyond censorship.2
•What does "nonaginate" mean? Dembski says this word was inspired by
"decimate," which dates to the old Roman practice of eliminating
"one-tenth of an unruly band of Roman soldiers." However, what Google
does is so much worse, so using the word decimate is a grave understatement.
•It's much worse than decimation — Dembski then turned to the Latin term for 90,
"nonaginta," and from here, he coined the word
"nonaginate," saying that this was a better-suited word for what this
company does.
"Nonaginate — hat tip to Google for inspiring the term — is thus
defined as destroying at least ninety percent of a thing. Nonagination is
therefore much more extreme than decimation (in decimation's strict literal
sense of only destroying ten percent). Google prefers to nonaginate sites it
doesn't like," he writes.
•I first-handedly experienced
nonagination back in 2019 — Six years ago,
on June 3, 2019, to be exact, Google implemented a broad "core
update" that eliminated most Mercola.com
pages from its search results. Virtually overnight, Google
traffic to my site dropped by approximately 99.9%.
•Decades of valuable health information
has been buried — Since 1997, Mercola.com has been
considered a highly relevant source of health content, and has been one of the
top natural health websites worldwide. But in one fell swoop, Google removed
all our high-ranked results, and replaced them with health information from
advertising companies that promote junk food and drugs instead.
Google Hides Behind Its So-Called 'Policies'
Mercola.com wasn't the only victim of nonagination
— countless alternative health websites were also hit with similar penalties,
losing their visibility, reach, and revenue streams. For many, this meant
bankruptcy. Yet, Google does not publicly admit to this bias; instead, it hides
behind abstract policy language.3
•Bias is hidden behind policies that
claim neutrality — To justify its move to downrank
alternative health websites, Google invokes content guidelines like
"Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness"
(EEAT), and "Your Money or Your Life" (YMYL).4
•On paper, these standards sound like
they exist to protect users — But
in practice, they create a false sense of objectivity that allows Google to
bury dissenting voices without admitting to any ideological filtering. Even
licensed physicians and researchers are downgraded if they suggest that healing
might come from something other than patented drugs.
•This suppression is systemic, not
incidental — EEAT and YMYL policies are
enforced by both machine algorithms and human raters, all trained to flag
anything outside of conventional dogma as untrustworthy — even if that
information is backed by clinical experience or published studies.
•The result? Websites that promote natural, research-backed
concepts like real food, mitochondrial health, sunlight exposure, or EMF
reduction are treated the same way as snake oil scams. Google nonaginates them
in the name of "safety."
From Crowdsourcing to Crowd Control
In the past, google search results were based on
crowdsource relevance. An article's rankings on Google search would ascend
based on the number of people who clicked on it. Basically, if you produced
unique and high-quality content that matched what people were looking for, you
were rewarded by ranking in the top of search results.
•To help you ideate this, here's an
example — Let's say you have an article
about Akkermansia that is found on the seventh page of Google's search results,
and then your competitor also has an Akkermansia article on the fifth page of
search results. If more people click on your article than your competitor's, your
article will move up in rank. So, in a nutshell, these search results are based
on popularity.
•But this is no longer the case — Now, Google is manually lowering the ranking
of undesirable content with the help of "quality raters." These
raters are basing their feedback largely on Wikipedia's assessment of the
author or site (more on this in the next section).
•Who are these so-called quality
raters? According to the company's Search
Quality Rater Guidelines, they have 16,000 external search quality raters
working for them to "provide ratings based on our guidelines and represent
real users and their likely information needs, using their best judgment to
represent their locale."5
•However, these raters are not Google
employees — Rather, they are employed by
external firms who have contracted them to Google. According to an article by
ARS Technica:
"They're carefully trained and
tested staff who can spend 40 hours per week logged into a system called Raterhub,
which is owned and operated by Google. Every day, the raters complete dozens of
short but exacting tasks that produce invaluable data about the usefulness of
Google's ever-changing algorithms.
They contribute
significantly to several Google and Android projects, from search and voice
recognition to photos and personalization features."6
Google Quality Raters Rely
on Wikipedia for 'Expertise' and 'Trustworthiness'
As mentioned
earlier, one of the primary sources Google's quality raters are instructed to
use when assessing the expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness of an
author or website is Wikipedia, "the free encyclopedia."
•Wikipedia is
highly biased against natural health — Unfortunately for
many of us in the field of alternative health, Wikipedia's founder and editors
are well-known to have extreme bias against natural health content and authors.
•What's more, the editors are
completely anonymous — Wikipedia's
editors are purely volunteers, and there are a few who have reached the most
powerful editing status. They're known as the administrators. However, you will
not know their identity as they hide behind pseudonyms and usernames.
So, basically, you have no idea whether the editors
who are editing your content are truly experts on the topic. So how can we
consider Wikipedia to be an authority of credibility when the editors are
anonymous and uncredentialed?
Wikipedia Is Aggressive When
It Comes to Censorship
While Google's censoring of content started just
several years ago, Wikipedia has been censoring information and blocking
editors since the beginning. About 1,000 users are blocked from the platform on
any given day.
•Wikipedia is
often edited by people with a very specific agenda — According to
investigative journalist Sheryl Attkisson, anyone who tries to clarify or clear
up inaccuracies on the site is simply blocked. The
reality is a far cry from Wikipedia's public promise, which is to provide
readers with unbiased information.
•Google is funding Wikipedia — Considering its history of bias and its
incredibly effective blocking of opposing views, no matter how factual, it's
not surprising that Wikipedia is Google's chosen arbiter of expertise and
credibility. And Wikipedia is profiting from this partnership, financially
speaking. In January 2019, Google donated $2 million to Wikimedia Endowment,
Wikipedia's parent organization, and another $1.1 million to the Wikimedia
Foundation.
•So what does this mean? Since Google's freelance raters rely on
Wikipedia, it means the whole "quality rating" system they've set up
is rotten from the ground up, as its quality raters are instructed to base
their quality decisions on an already biased source.
Google Is the World's Biggest Monopoly
Video Link: https://youtu.be/QIx-8ud4sFo
There's no doubt that Google is now one of the largest
and clearest monopolies in the world. It monopolizes
several different markets, including search and advertising. In the case of
search, it controls 90% of the market; its closest competitor, Bing, only has
2% of the market.7 Google
also controls about 60% of the global advertising revenue on the internet.
•Google's primary business is the
harvesting of user data — Google catches
every single thing you do online if you're using a Google-based feature, and
this data is then used to build powerful personality profiles that are sold for
profit and used in a variety of different ways.
This data gathering goes far beyond what most
people realize was even possible and is one of the primary reasons smaller
advertisers cannot compete — they don't have the user data Google has.
•Google also owns DeepMind, the world's
greatest artificial intelligence (AI) company — With nearly 6,000 employees worldwide,8 many
of them AI researchers, it is not hard for them to sort through all your data with
their deep learning algorithms to detect patterns that can be exploited for
profit.
•Unfortunately, many still fail to see
the problem Google presents — Its
services are useful and practical, making life easier in many ways, and more
fun in others. However, the complete and utter loss of privacy is a high price
to be paid for such conveniences. Ultimately, your user data and personal
details can be used for everything from creating personalized advertising to
AI-equipped robotic warfare applications.
Say Goodbye to Google Today
Today, being a conscious consumer includes making
wise, informed decisions about technology, and one of the greatest personal
data leaks in your life is Google. If you need an extensive list on just how pervasive
Google is, I recommend reading my article, "Goodbye Google."
Here's a summary of action steps for you to take
right now to protect your privacy. I recommend sharing them with your friends
and family so they too can protect themselves from Google's data theft
practices.
•Swap out your browser — Uninstall Google Chrome and use Brave or
Opera instead. Everything you do on Chrome is surveilled, including keystrokes
and every webpage you've ever visited. Brave is a great alternative that takes
privacy seriously.
•Switch your search engine — Stop using Google search engines or any
extension of Google, such as Bing or Yahoo, both of which draw search results
from Google. Instead, use a
default search engine that offers privacy, such as Presearch, Startpage,
DuckDuckGo, Qwant and many others.
•Use a secure
email — Close
your Gmail account and switch to a secure email service like ProtonMail. If you have children, don't transfer their student
Google account into a personal account once they're out of school.
•Switch to a secure document sharing
service — Ditch Google Docs and use another
alternative such as Zoho Office, Etherpad, CryptPad, OnlyOffice or Nuclino, all
of which are recommended by NordVPN.9
•Delete all Google apps from your phone
and purge Google hardware — Better yet, get
a de-Googled phone. Several companies now offer them, including Above Phone.
•Avoid websites that use Google
Analytics — To do that, you'll need to check
the website's privacy policy and search for "Google." Websites are required to
disclose if they use a third-party surveillance tool. If they use Google
Analytics, ask them to switch!
•Use a secure
messaging system — To keep your private communications private,
use a messaging tool that provides end-to-end encryption, such as Signal.
•Use a virtual
private network (VPN) such as NordVPN or Strong VPN — This is a must if you
seek to preserve your online privacy.
•Don't use
Google Home devices in your house or apartment — These devices record
everything that occurs in your home, both speech and sounds such as brushing
your teeth and boiling water, even when they appear to be inactive, and send
that information back to Google. The
same goes for Google's home thermostat Nest and Amazon's Alexa.
•Don't use an
Android cellphone, as it's owned by Google.
•Ditch Siri, which draws all its answers from Google.
•Don't use Fitbit — It was recently purchased by Google and will
provide them with all your physiological information and activity levels, in
addition to everything else that Google already has on you.
Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQs) About Google's Search Rankings
Q: Why is it harder to find alternative health
websites on Google?
A: Google's algorithm
deliberately downranks websites that promote natural health approaches or
question pharmaceutical narratives. Even licensed doctors are penalized if
their content contradicts mainstream medical guidelines.
Q: What does the term
"nonaginate" mean and how does it relate to this issue?
A: Coined by design theorist
William Dembski, "nonaginate" means to destroy 90% or more of
something. It describes how Google decimates the visibility of alternative
health websites by wiping out their search traffic.
Q: How does Google justify removing these
websites from top search results?
A: Google hides behind
policies like EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and
Trustworthiness) and YMYL (Your Money or Your Life), claiming these filters
protect users. In practice, they are used to silence dissenting health voices.
Q: Who decides what health content is
trustworthy on Google?
A: Google employs 16,000
quality raters who rely heavily on Wikipedia to judge credibility. Since Wikipedia is openly biased against natural
health, this creates a feedback loop of censorship and misinformation.
Q: What can I do to
protect my access to reliable health information?
A: Avoid using Google products
and search engines. Choose alternatives like DuckDuckGo for browsing,
ProtonMail for email, and Opera for web access. Being intentional with your
tech choices helps protect your privacy and access to honest health content.
Sources and References
·
1, 3 Substack, Bill Dembski, May 9, 2025
·
2 Mind Matters, May 15, 2025
·
4, 5 Google, Search
Quality Rater Guidelines: An Overview
·
6 Ars Technica, April 27, 2017
·
7 CBS News, May
21, 2018
·
8 Lead IQ,
Deepmind
·
9 NordVPN February
5, 2019µù
Bron: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/07/14/google-silencing-alternative-health-websites.aspx?cid_source=takecontrol&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20250814_TC
