A Geographic Analysis of Google Characterizations of Who Is an "Eye Doctor" Across the US

Abstract

In order to continue to clarify and maintain their role as eye physicians and surgeons, ophthalmologists may want to understand how they are viewed in the public eye and online. To determine the representation of ophthalmologists (OMD) and optometrists (ODs) when a Google search for "eye doctor near me" is made from each county in the US. This population-based cross-sectional study used publicly available data on OMDs and ODs and a Google search application programming interface (API) to search the phrase "eye doctor near me" from the geographic coordinates of each county centroid in the US (searched June 30, 2021). The top 10 sites and 3 Google map links, excluding physician ratings sites, were recorded. Data from the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were used to estimate the real number of OMDs and ODs per county. The primary outcome was the mean proportion of OMDs listed by Google search as compared with the real proportion of OMDs for the US overall and for each state and county. A total of 2955 counties from 52 states and territories were included. The overall mean proportion of OMDs (OMDs with ODs) from the Google search of all counties was 4726.97 of 16 345.93 (28.91%), which was also less than the real proportion of ODs (15 778 of 41 975 [37.58%], a difference of 8.67%; 95% CI, 37.13-38.05%; P < .001). OMDs were underrepresented by Google in 35 of 52 states and territories (67.3%). In most counties in the US, Google search of the phrase "eye doctor near me" may underrepresent ophthalmologists. Ophthalmologists may want to pursue search engine optimization to try to achieve balanced representation online.