We are ”MEDWORD”

Do you ... ever wonder who or what is Medword?

Medword is a company originally based in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, & now located in Chilliwack, B.C. Chilliwack is approximately 1.25 hours east of Vancouver, B.C. Since 1989 we have been providing medical transcription services to physicians in the Lower Mainland of B.C., Canada. Medword is a private, family-owned small business. Medword's office is not open to the public and there is no retail store on the premises. Like many other leading-edge companies, all our sales & services are only available via the web. Medword's main sites are Medword Medical Transcription, MT Gab Discussion Forum, and The Medword List directory of health, science, and medical transcription links. Medword was a member of the Surrey Chamber of Commerce since 1990, & is now a member of the Chilliwack Chamber of Commerce. Medword is also a member of the Better Business Bureau of Lower Mainland BC and is an officially accredited Better Business Bureau company. Medword also has a personal membership in the AHDI (Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity).

Medword considers itself a "grassroots" company. We are an active company, performing medical transcription daily. We started providing helpful information to medical transcriptionists via the web back in 1995. (Back then, we were only one of two medical transcription sites that could be found when searching the Internet.) Although our company started in September, 1989, and we had pages on the web under a personal space, we didn't get our own domain, www.medword.com, until November 12, 1996. Our mandate for our web activities from the start was to offer information and resources of practical use and value via the web to MTs and other visitors, but without charge. We know from experience the difficulties in starting a small company, performing medical transcription for the first time, integrating new technology into a business, and the frustration encountered in finding relevant information.

It is difficult being a small company on the web these days. Medword pioneered the web business template for many of today's medical transcription web sites, especially in the area of selling products, services, & courses for other companies. Unfortunately, nowadays our "competition" for visitors and customers is from much, much larger companies with very "deep pockets," who have large contingencies of employees, and can budget huge amounts of money for adverting and search engine "keyword" placement with companies like Google© & Yahoo!©. Did you know that when you search on Google©, Yahoo!© & many other search sites, that the companies at the top of the list have outbid other companies to be placed there? None of these results reflect whether the site is the best a user can find. It's a financial game with search companies making huge amounts of money while companies try to outbid each other for their position in the results that are served to you—the user.

On Google © for example, the keyword phrase "medical transcription" costs so much Medword cannot compete. For instance, Medword shows up in Google © results at lower positions, because we don't pay for the keyword phrase, even though our main page has a Google © rank of 5 out of 10, which is considered quite good. (Google © page rank is a determination of the popularity of a particular page on a site.) Some of the preceding sites in the search results have Google page ranks less than this. When Medword joined the Internet in November 1996, and a user searched for "medical transcription" only two results were returned, Medword was one of those. Today, on Google ©, a search using the phrase "medical transcription" returns more than 10,500,000 (that's 10.5 million) results. Here are the costs suggested for the keyword phrase "medical transcription" by Google © in order for a company to have the best chance of placing at the top of the list:

Average CPC (cost-per-click): 3.81 USD to a maximum of 10.77 USD per-click.
Estimated clicks per day: 101 - 126 with a Google © recommended daily budget of 540.00 USD (that's Five-hundred-forty U.S. Dollars per day).

On Yahoo! © & other similar search companies, the system is much the same. Using the same keyword "medical transcription" phrase, Yahoo! © results show there are over 9,400,000 (that's 9.4 million) results. On Yahoo!© Medword places in lower positions, again, because we don't pay for the keyword phrase. And again still there is no assurance that the previous sites contain the information a user is actually looking for. As a matter of a fact, most of those placements are schools selling medical transcription courses—not resources for transcriptionists. On Yahoo! © the keyword phrase "medical transcription" will cost anywhere between a low of 3.87 USD to a maximum of 9.16 USD per click. Here are the costs associated with the keyword phrase "medical transcription" as recommended by Yahoo! © for a company to have the best chance of placing at or near the top of the search results list:

Average CPC (cost-per-click): $3.81 (to a maximum CPC of $10.77)
Estimated clicks per day: (28 (at a daily budget of 100.00 to 201.56 U.S. dollars per day).

Times are changing on the web every day. The ever increasing cost to be listed in search engines or pay for search engine positions is making it virtually impossible for smaller sites such as Medword.com to be found. Despite this trend, Medword still offers access to all areas of our sites without charge. This includes our MT Gab Medical Transcription Forum, a state-of-the art board populated by a friendly, welcoming, non-judgmental virtual community, and The Medword List directory of health, science, and medical transcription links.

How does Medword manage to operate sites without any charge to visitors? Medword has tried to avoid outside advertising. We've always "footed the bill" ourselves. With continually rising costs since 1995 however, we have to promote & sell products found in our own online store.

Even with the modest income we derive from various sources, we still have to dig into our own pockets to operate & maintain our sites. Without the generosity of visitors to the Medword site, especially medical transcriptionists, we may not be able to continue our presence on the web.

Because of all the e-mails that pass through our system, we could have a legal, lucrative revenue source from selling lists of e-mail addresses of people interested in sites like ours - called a "niche market." Niche market lists can provide substantial revenue for the provider because an advertiser would already know the main interest of the people on the list. However, unlike many companies, Medword does not sell, rent, lease, or share e-mail addresses to with third parties, except if you purchase a product through our store. We want our visitors to feel welcome and comfortable on all our sites. We do not want to make money from their e-mail addresses. We don't like our e-mail addresses being added to lists without our permission, so we certainly would never do this to our visitors.

Other Medword pages discussing privacy, identity theft, and buying online:

• Answers on buying over the Internet
• Comments on buying safely through Medword
• Discussion of Internet Secure Servers
• Giving personal & credit card information over the Internet
• ID theft information from Medword & BBB
• Notice regarding your privacy & Medword
• Medword: Who we are & what we do
• Medword's Privacy Policy
• Shipping only to cardholder address
• Statement regarding the products we carry
• Why Medword asks for your credit card CID or CVV