WebMD vs. Healthline - when industries shift
Writing tear-aparts can be very helpful to understand why a site is successful. But when writing about why one incumbent overtakes another one in an industry, it can reveal fundamental lessons. One of these tectonic shifts occurred in the online health vertical, dominated by WebMD and Healthline, about which I wrote in the context of Red Ventures' Growth playbook.Mind you that external data can only reveal so much and says nothing about the in-house SEO team's or consulting agency's quality. Many factors decide how successful a company is at SEO.Healthline overtook WebMD in January 2020, according to Sistrix. Notice how both sites increase in SEO Visibility in August 2018 when the Medic Update rolled out, and then drop again around March 2019. They move almost in sync. Then, at the end of January 2020, WebMD declines in SEO Visibility, and Healthline grows and passes by.SEMrush shows that this shift already happened around October 2019 for total traffic, but I want to focus on organic...