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You may have heard about “Ancient apocalypse”, the series in which the host Graham Hancock proposed controversial theories about the origin of ancient civilizations.
It spent a week continuously in the top 10 worldwide on Netflix, collecting approximately 24,620,000 hours between November 14th and November 20th, 2022.
Netflix licenses the show by classifying it as a “docuseries,” and IMDB classifies it as “documentary” and “historical.”
But online, it is shrouded in controversy, and search algorithms can reward good faith in the criticism of the show from scientists and scholars – as some archaeologists consider the show not to be confirming the authenticity of pseudoscience at best, and dangerous bad news at worst.
The Society for American Archeology has written a letter to Netflix asking it to revise and moderate the show, citing the host’s “hot treatment,” the show’s “false” claims, and its associations with the theory. presented have “racist, racist ideologies.”
But this is a story about the role of SEO in the debate – how scientists and science communicators present their ideas on the show, and how the audience receives them.
Search algorithms are getting a lot of credit for how they can be used to spread misinformation.
But in this case, I see support for teachers and scientists who are committed to pushing against popular pseudoscience.
Creators Rebutting “Ancient Apocalypse” Get A Boost From SEO
I first learned about the controversy from the creator of YouTube “History With Kayleigh,” who, although not an academic or accredited, creates educational videos about ancient history and archaeological sites.
She interacted with Tweets from scientists who responded and “decided to try and write a discredit to the show,” as she told me.
Kayleigh’s video about “Ancient Apocalypse” is not the best video on her channel. Still, it’s definitely doing better than her recent release average in such a short period of time, at 67,000 views on December 1st.
Image from YouTube, December 2022
But then I photographed the station again after the weekend, on December 5th.
Kayleigh released a second video, and the first “Ancient Apocalypse: Fact or Fiction?” it has already grown to 104,000 views.
Image from YouTube, December 2022
Kayleigh isn’t the only creator to post content about the Netflix series.
Dr. Bill Farley, an archaeologist and professor at Southern Connecticut State University who runs a small YouTube channel about archeology in his spare time, made one of the first YouTube videos that Hancock’s criticism of the show.
And while his reach was smaller, his videos about the “Ancient apocalypse” exploded.
Image from YouTube, December 2022
Image from YouTube, December 2022
Dr. Farley shared screenshots of his YouTube analysis, showing that his first video about Graham Hancock drew more traffic than usual from Google searches.
The images below are from November 22nd, when the video had around 5,000 views.
For that video, the “external” traffic base is around 28%, compared to its channel average of around 10%. A third of this traffic is from Google.
A screenshot of the internal analysis of the “Archeology Tube” YouTube channel, November 2022
A screenshot of the internal analysis of the “Archeology Tube” YouTube channel, November 2022
The following screenshot is a detailed channel profile for comparison.
A screenshot of the internal analysis of the “Archeology Tube” YouTube channel, November 2022
He also shared the criteria for finding videos that perform best in YouTube search.
A screenshot of the internal analysis of the “Archeology Tube” YouTube channel, November 2022
I checked back with his station on December 5th.
Image from YouTube, December 2022
This first video still gets the most traffic from search terms. Opinions about him were about 11% lower on December 5 than they were on November 22.
This makes sense with the publications taking the article and filling the search results pages (SERPs).
A screenshot of the internal analysis of the “Archeology Tube” YouTube channel, November 2022
The second video has different ratings, usually they are pushed by YouTube’s search feature like suggested videos.
A screenshot of the internal analysis of the “Archeology Tube” YouTube channel, November 2022
At this point, YouTube seems to have recognized the interest in a trending topic and pushed the video accordingly.
In his first video about “Ancient Archaeology,” Dr. Farley addressed Hancock directly with criticism that focused on the relationship between the ideas presented in the show, and white skin.
In the second video, Dr.
He told me, “There are HUGE differences in the quality of the two videos. In video #1, I mentioned white supremacy and the history of Atlantean mythology with racism. That video has…hundreds of derogatory comments [that are] bigoted, racist, and homophobic.
The second video has some comments like this, but many other positive comments or constructive criticism. This video directly addresses some of the false narratives in the show but does not directly address racism or white supremacy.”
Even with the negative feedback, the fact remains that people watched and engaged in the video, as this screenshot of video activity statistics shows.
A screenshot of the internal analysis of the “Archeology Tube” YouTube channel, November 2022
One could argue that this is a travesty – and that these seemingly successful performance measures are only about using a trending word.
But YouTube’s algorithms work differently than Google Search.
YouTube uses metadata about videos to evaluate relevance, but also uses user engagement signals such as watch time to test the relevance of videos to specific questions. YouTube’s biggest value is viewer satisfaction.
“History with Kayleigh” has such a large following that it probably gives her promotional videos. But Dr. Farley doesn’t have a big following, and his video delivery comes down to genetics.
People Search For Information About “Ancient Apocalypse” And Discover Critique
Other scientists, along with young and old believers, have also seen an unusual amount of traffic about this topic on other platforms.
Dr Flint Dibble, an archaeologist at Cardiff University, wrote a reply to The Conversation and noted the popularity of this piece on Twitter:
Image from Twitter, November 2022
I arrived at Dr. Dibble to see it. He added: “I got a lot of feedback about my thread. A lot of abuse, a lot of compliments. A lot of people found it obvious when asking for more information on the show.
Some, especially in the first week of release, said they were checking Twitter for reactions to it either before or mid-watch.
The people who mentioned finding the thread through the search were all happy with how quickly they got more information about the show. “
He cites the example of a Twitter user who went to search for information about the show while watching it and praised the criticism he posted on the forum:
Image from Twitter, December 2022
Dr. Andre Costopulos, an archaeologist at the University of Alberta, wrote about the show on his personal WordPress blog and shared his findings with me in late November.
His articles about the “Ancient Apocalypse” became the best activity on his website in a few days, with Google Search becoming the most traffic.
Internal analysis image from archeothoughts.wordpress.com, November 2022
Overall, this is not a huge amount of traffic. What is interesting here is how the content of the show compares to other things that this creator has done, especially because the site is very small.
Dr. Cosopoulos believes that scientists can reach an audience hungry for information if they learn the tools.
“Scientists can use these tools as transformative tools,” he said, “and often to great effect, because we actually have evidence to back up our claims.”
How SEO Can Be Used To Spread Misinformation
Search algorithms are the areas that cause misunderstandings.
Spreading conspiracies and false information has been a hot topic on various platforms, from YouTube to Facebook.
Google has been considering misunderstandings and how best to deal with them for years.
People who make serious conspiracy theories and science fiction know this. They are professional marketers and storytellers, and they are good at SEO.
This can make it more difficult to communicate good science than misunderstandings. Scientists have very difficult jobs outside of marketing and publishing, and their conclusions are often difficult to communicate effectively.
They are not trained to do it, and science is slow to adapt to the digital environment.
This paves the way for a conspiracy theory to pop up with a good little story and good marketing.
Dr. Farley said: “Honestly, I think academics have no idea how to do SEO (I’m stumbling in the dark myself), and people who are not good at it are much, much better at it. Scientists, in fact, don’t have time to learn this stuff.
It would be great if our universities would help… but I find media departments at unis are old school. If I bring this up to them, they will issue a press release to the local newspaper.
Our media department is well-intentioned and well-intentioned, but overall, they’ve just started the game on using social media as a media tool. “
So we have a conflict where scientists, who are not necessarily trained in communication and marketing, are faced with strategic business people. And they do it with personal hobbies on top of their regular jobs.
When it comes to genetics, scientists need partners.
Is Critique Of “Ancient Apocalypse” Having An Impact?
The results don’t look encouraging when you zoom in and look at the SERPs for “Ancient Apocalypse.”
I opened an incognito window in Chrome and made sure my VPN was enabled (US location), then searched for [old apocalypse].
Image from search [old apocalypse], Google, December 2022
The results here are a bit of a mixed bag.
The first result is just a link to the show. What to expect.
Immediately below are the video results. A second video appears to support the show. It had about 60,000 views when I took the picture. This is a large enough number compared to the examples we looked at above.
The third video has less views but criticizes the show.
We can also see, on the data panel, that the accusations from the scientific community may not be very effective. The audience is watching the show very well.
Below the results of the video, we see criticism from The Guardian and Slate. Let’s go back to the results of the news.
Image from search [old apocalypse], Google, December 2022
These are the most common criticisms of the show published on major media platforms. Journalists help scientists get their message across.
I checked again a few days later, using Chrome’s encrypted guest browser with my VPN enabled (US location). There has been an interesting change in the SERP:
Image from search [old apocalypse], Google, December 2022
It seems that Google has taken issue with the poor quality of the search results. The video results are gone, replaced by a “Top News” search feature that appears above organic results.
Archaeologists Saw A Boost From SEO With Limited, But Important, Impact
Archaeologists have seen a boost from SEO on this topic. But we can see from the Google results that the show is popular, and the fans of the game are very attractive.
The limited effectiveness of this collective effort reflects the problems facing science communicators. The impact of their criticism seemed like a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of people who watched the show.
But we shouldn’t discount the achievements of these scientists and teachers, either.
They build communities, provide information to people who seek it, and change minds. When you look closely, you can explore the algorithms that reward these creators for their efforts.
Consumers discover legitimate scientific research when they look at the series. The content reaches people, and it encourages them to explore the show more.
This is encouraging news for the overall quality of research.
I think entrepreneurs can help here.
SEO experts have the knowledge and resources to help optimize these messages. Perhaps we can consider it a bit of community service research.
Credit: Elnur/Shutterstock