Pfizer Takes First in Covario Study on SEO Health of Pharmaceutical Industry

Covario, Inc., the nation's largest independent provider of global search marketing agency services and technology solutions for search engine optimization, issued a white paper from a study on the SEO health of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies.
Using the patented Covario SEO Audit Score(TM), 16 of the world's largest pharmaceutical advertisers were measured from 0 to 100 (with 100 being "excellent" and 0 being "poor") on how well their websites are optimized for the highest volume keywords used by consumers and medical professionals when they are searching for drug-related information on Google, Bing and other search engines. Pfizer came in first in the SEO study, followed by Merck, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson. Pfizer took first place because it effectively optimized its websites for search queries around the word "pharmaceutical," which Covario found to be critical for generating strong brand recognition among medical professionals using Google and the other search engines.

The study highlights how pharma advertisers are not showing up in organic search results for more consumer-focused, high-volume keywords like "medicine," "drugs," and "healthcare." The study found that the search results for these keywords, instead, are dominated by the likes of WebMD, Drugstore.com, various universities, hospitals, and medical institutions.

Following Johnson & Johnson, there was a three-way tie for fifth place in the study among Bayer, Eli Lilly, and Novartis. Rounding out the other pharmaceutical firms in the study were GlaxoSmithKline, Abbot Laboratories, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Allergan, Amgen, Biogen Idec, Mylan, Gilead, and Genzyme.