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To the Editor: There is ongoing uncertainty about how often consumers use the Internet to search for health-related information. For instance, although a 2000 survey found that 55% of individuals with Internet access have used the Web to find health or medical information,¹ Phillipov and Phillips² reported that 17 health-related search terms they found in the first 300 search terms of the Wordtracker Top 500 keyword report comprised fewer than 1% of all queries. It is possible, however, that people may use many different health-related keywords that are so rare that they never appear on the Top 500 Keywords list. To address this, we analyzed a random sample of search terms entered into a search engine over a longer period of time.

Methods

We used the Metaspy Exposed Web site (http://www.metaspy.com/), which lists 10 unfiltered search strings people are currently entering on Metacrawler, and which refreshes every 15 seconds . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Gunther Eysenbach, MD, MPH
geysenba@uhnres.utoronto.ca
Centre for Global eHealth Innovation
University Health Network
Toronto, Ontario

Christian Köhler, MD
Department of Clinical Social Medicine
University of Heidelberg
Heidelberg, Germany

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