Yesterday I presented new library resources to a group of pharmacist. As we were finishing the session a pharmacist asked about PubMed MyNCBI. I showed a few features and then decided to mention PubMed Health, except PubMed Health did not want to make an appearance.
I wanted to let my patrons know about this new resource so they are not caught off guard, as many in the medical library field have been (See previous post), when they do a search on Google for a medication or disease. Yet, when I did a quick Google search for ‘paxil’ this was the result:
Figure 1: Google search result for paxil on 3.22.11
As you can see from the image above, PubMed Health was nowhere to be found. It was disappointing to see Wikipedia as the first result when I had been so accustomed to seeing the Google Heatlh Search box and now PubMed Health. I thought maybe this is a fluke, let me do another search (mind you this was all during the middle of a presentation):
Figure 2: Google search for zofran 3.22.11
Once again PubMed Health is nowhere to be found in the search results 
Well I was bound and determined to show the pharmacist the new PubMed Health that ‘was’ appearing on ‘most’ computers as the first result in a Google search for medications and/or diseases. I could not remember the exact website address so I did what any good librarian would do… I googled PubMed Health to no avail.
I ended up clicking on the recent article from The Krafty Librarian, which displayed within the top 3 results, to get to the link. Sigh, it was one of those moments when you try to show something new only to have it #fail.
I know PubMed Health is still new, and these things happen. I mean different computers yield different search results in Google based on previous searches. I think it was the context in which this happened that really has me bummed about PubMed Health. It also didn’t help that a search for “PubMed Health” could not find the home page.
Anyone else experiencing this? I know there were reports of different results from medical librarians in Canada (I believe this was mentioned by @danhooker). Is anyone else seeing different results on Google when searching for medications or disease information?
Update: I was using IE8 browser, with the firewalls, and on internal servers. It was the same, except for the computer, as I use at my desk (see image below for different result when searching ‘paxil.’). I think it is like T. Scott said, it is the Google algorithm that creates different results depending on previous searches. The frustrating part for me was that even googling “PubMed Health” did not yield a link to the website. Now I am wondering if I should be considered with the odd results or the fact that the pharmacist are probably using Wikipedia and other resources more
Figure 3: Google results for 'paxil' on my work computer.
Comments on: "PubMed Health Disappearing Act" (6)
Hey Alisha. So I just duplicated your searches (though I can’t see your screenshots currently) and I’m not getting PubMed Health results for drug searches, either.
However, I hadn’t ever tried a Google drug search to test PubMed Health before, so I can’t say whether or not it used to work.
I can say that I still get PubMed Health results for disease searches including ‘diabetes’ and ‘rheumatoid arthritis’.
I should have included images from my work computer as well, but I do see PubMed Health when I search for ‘paxil’ in Google. I will update the post with the image since I cannot post it here.
It is very interesting that results are so varied from different places. I was actually on the same network and same browser but different computers had different results. It is interesting.
Thank you for the comment!
~Alisha
I’m still seeing PubMed Health for both pharma and health condition searches in both IE and Firefox. Anything unusual about the browser/connection/possible filtering from where you were accessing?
Sorry. I was using IE8 on the pharmacy computer which is the same configuration as my work computer and on the same browser. It is just different computers. I will update the post with an image from my work computer with the same search.
It is very odd. I thought it would be due to different browsers, filters, or networks but everything was the same. The only thing I could figure is the pharmacy’s computer has different search history & cookies with more clicks on Google to Wikipedia and similar websites.
What do you think?
Thank you for the comment!
~Alisha
As Google goes through the seemingly endless process of tweaking their algorithms their goal is to customize the search results more and more closely to the computer doing the searches. So Google results are always going to be different from computer to computer. On my laptop, the PubMed Health article on paxil is the first thing that comes up, but that doesn’t surprise me.
Very true. The mysterious Google algorithm does base the results on the specific computer that is doing the searching. I guess I was just really thrown off, especially when I searched for PubMed Health and still could not find it without going to a blog that mentioned it.
Thank you for the comment and the reminder about how Google’s algorithm is intended to work.
~Alisha