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Google has been touting a Jupiter Research report on health information searching and its recommendations for advertisers.

Jupiter Has Good Prognosis For Health Ads

It's been a month since we visited Google's Health Ads blog due to an amazingly ill-advised blog post and the tepid corporate response it generated from the PR department.

The blog in question has added a couple of posts since then, neither by the person responsible for the early July kerfuffle over how healthcare interests can counter negative publicity with some Google advertising. The most recent post discussed findings by Jupiter Research and its look into the way people find health information.

Google has it right when it comes to attracting those searchers. Neha Patel, posting for Google, cited the relevant details from the Jupiter report:

The study's overarching theme: relevance drives clicks. Four times as many consumers who used a search engine for health info clicked on a result because it was relevant, compared to others who click because the link was to a trusted source. And fully 65% of searchers clicked because the text was most relevant to their query. In addition, the study found that people seeking health information show no bias against sponsored results (versus natural results).

It isn't the source that matters, but the appearance of relevance. That's the great danger of health advertising. As an example, the diabetes drug Avandia has been linked to increased risks of heart attacks in their users, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

GlaxoSmithKline runs the most relevant-looking Avandia site, as it should per Google's recommendations supported by Jupiter's findings. But the Q&A about Avandia appearing on a Fox News article does a much better job of detailing recent concerns about the drug.

Relevance may be the way to go for health advertisers, but people need to look beyond the best-looking sites and be more critical of the information they find.