In early 2024, Google rolled out an algorithm update that made it very difficult for anonymous websites to rank highly. This was done to protect the quality of their search results and information feeding Google’s artificial intelligence systems.
The Rise and Fall of EMF Academy
EMF Academy was the highest-traffic EMF-focused website in the world from mid-2019 until early 2024 while the ownership and content creator was purposefully hidden. During this time, EMF Academy gathered 100,000 email subscribers and earned significant affiliate and advertising revenue. However, with this algorithm update, the website was delisted from Google and has lost all search traffic.
RadiationHealthRisks.com: A Similar Site
RadiationHealthRisks.com is a similar site to EMF Academy. It was created in 2018 by an anonymous blogger that only used his first name for the purposes of earning a six-figure income from advertising and affiliate commissions. While this blogger comes across as highly relatable, he knows very little about the EMF subject.
This website was also greatly impacted by the 2024 update, losing almost all Google traffic. However, this September its search traffic began to soar. Within a few months, it could be one of the highest-traffic EMF websites on the internet.
Who Created RadiationHealthRisks.com?
The blogger who built this website is named David. He goes out of his way on the website and YouTube Channel to never use his full name. When you click on the profile page, it simply takes you back to the blog. However, there is now an email address within the URL structure of the bio page:
https://www.radiationhealthrisks.com/author/dlnibargergmail-com/
From this Gmail address, you can see this person is David Nibarger in Rexburg, Idaho. He currently owns a windshield repair business and operates a website about Mormonism. David also has a LinkedIn page where he summarizes his career, which was mostly in mortgage refinancing.
Of special interest is his mention of the sale of RadiationHealthRisks.com in December 2023.
Misinformation from Anonymous EMF Websites
Google is wise to limit or completely eliminate the reach of anonymous marketing websites. There is no way to verify whether someone is an actual expert in a particular field or what their intentions are. In most situations, anonymous websites game search algorithms to make money from advertising and affiliate sales. They also acquire email addresses from unsuspecting visitors for other marketing operations. Their content is often copied for SEO purposes, not to provide value to the public.
The primary issue with RadiationHealthRisks.com is that David was clearly not a topic expert. He has no engineering background or EMF technical training. However, his pages for smartphone protection cases, EMF meters, and safe baby monitors now rank first on Google even though these pages are riddled with technical misinformation. Furthermore, EMF neutralizers are advertised throughout the website and YouTube channel. These are known scams, but he promoted them because of the Aulterra commissions.
Did EMF Academy Purchase RadiationHealthRisks.com?
To whom did David sell RadiationHealthRisks.com? It would have to be an entity that is skilled in dark-hat SEO practices and could financially benefit from having an EMF-focused site filled with all the personal videos that David made. This makes the property appear to be an expert website and bypasses the latest Google algorithm change that delists anonymous sites.
The new owner would also not necessarily care about advertising and affiliate commissions. Advertising is currently absent, and the affiliate links are mostly broken. Another reason to purchase an EMF-specific website is to gather email addresses to sell other digital products (such as online summits and courses).
EMF Academy was prolific in this area for the past five years, gaining over 100,000 email addresses interested in the EMF topic. The owner of this website, Jaron Tietsort, recently made his identity public after calling himself “Christian Thomas” for seven years. He used these emails primarily to funnel people into Nick Pineault’s EMF Hazards Summit and suite of digital products.
Connections to Nick Pineault
Because of this heavy promotion and several other factors, it has been suspected since 2018 that EMF Academy is directly associated with Nick & Gen Pineault’s affiliate marketing operation. While calling himself an “investigative journalist,” Pineault is actually a professional email marketer that uses the EMF niche to send millions of messages every month. These emails often promote products like camel’s milk, olive oil, and organic wine.
EMF Academy has been a primary source of those email addresses. Here you can see that EMF Academy was the biggest lead generation partner for the 2023 EMF Hazards Summit.
What Can Be Done?
Expose the Truth
Actual EMF experts who care about the integrity of the field and the public finding trustworthy EMF information have a duty to bring such practices to light. It was likely this investigation and this article that brought EMF Academy to the attention of Google Website Quality Raters over the past year.
Strengthen Google’s Algorithms
With artificial intelligence technology advancing exponentially, new investigative articles detailing the above situation will likely be discovered by Google within weeks or months. These can help highlight the nature of this anonymous website and the potential link to an email marketing operation. Google may also appreciate understanding how their search algorithms are being manipulated in ways that corrupt their A.I. or give the appearance that their data is compromised.
Encourage Credible Resources
Until these deceptive practices are fully addressed, legitimate EMF expert websites will lose traffic, and the credibility of the topic will continue to decline as confusing pseudo-information becomes the first thing people encounter when they search for EMF-related topics.