Help & support

The recommendation widget, which is free for content providers (such as publishers) to install on their website(s), generates recommendations for readers based on their reading habits. Clicking on the link might take the reader to another article within the same publishers’ website(s)—or to a third-party website owned by a different publisher altogether. Each click on a link that directs a reader outside the host publishers’ website(s) earns the host publisher a new visitor back to their site in return.

Here’s a concrete example, from the reader perspective:

1. JAMA publishes an article about respiratory disease and would like to promote it. They set a weekly budget, and the article is disseminated through TrendMD’s network.
2. Meanwhile, you’re reading a different article on respiratory disease in The BMJ. Since The BMJ has the TrendMD widget installed, it tells you that you might also be interested in the first article published by JAMA.
3. You click the link. Your click “costs” one credit, which is deducted from JAMA’s credit balance. The BMJ receives a half credit which can then goes towards redistributing their own content—and JAMA enjoys the increased exposure and site traffic.

Traditional recommender systems stop at semantic enrichment (i.e. relatedness).

TrendMD utilizes a variety of factors to determine the best links for each reader, including relatedness, audience click behaviour (“people that read X, also clicked on Y”), article popularity, and personalization (i.e. what you have read in the past). Our algorithms are optimized to connect the right content to the right reader, at the right time.

Recommendation links dynamically pair with different articles and change locations across our network, based on where they are most likely to receive the highest click-through rate.

Both the appearance of the widget and the content presented by the widget can be fully customized using your dashboard. Here is an example of what the widget looks like on BMJ:

TrendMD can be used on your website(s) for free, indefinitely. We promote links to your content on third-party sites in the TrendMD network so long as your credit balance is above zero. You determine how much TrendMD will cost based on how many new visitors you want us to direct to your website(s). You automatically earn credits from clicks on third-party sponsored links featured on your website(s), which is used to promote your content throughout the network. Assutuibakky, you can add to your credit balance by setting a weekly budget. ‘In-network’ recommendations are always free.
So if you want to ensure that your journal(s) get 1000 additional visitors per month, you set your weekly budget to $250 USD/week. See additional visitors acquired for more details.

In most cases, the widget tends to perform best if placed directly below the abstract with 2 columns or on the right hand side of the page with 1 column. The number of widget columns can be set easily by logging into your dashboard - click here for more instructions.
That said, we encourage you to A/B test to determine the optimal widget placement that yields the highest clickthrough rate.

TrendMD benefits publishers in 2 ways:

1. Grow your readership:Once our widget is installed, we begin distributing links to scholarly content from your journals and blogs in the widget results of our relevant partner sites. We send a large amount of new unique visitors from many of the largest publishers to come discover, read, and cite your articles.
2. Increase pageviews per reader: TrendMD looks beyond just related links to help people discover, read, and cite interesting scholarly content from your journals and websites through personalized recommendations. Our recommendation algorithms continuously optimize the placements of links to your content for the right audience while readers are actively looking for something interesting to discover.

Additional visitors acquired
Additional visitors that clicks on sponsored links brought to your website. Your credit balance decreases by 1 credit when a click occurs on a link to your content featured on a third-party site
Additional pageviews generated
Additional pageviews are generated when visitors click on recommended links to your content
Third-party affiliate link revenue
Revenue derived from visitors clicking on third party sponsored links shown across your website(s)

Because traffic lift is a ratio (we look at the number of additional views relative to baseline traffic) the % lift for large and small publishers is comparable. Larger publishers generally have greater quantities of baseline traffic and therefore can earn more credits , but they also need larger numbers of additional views to get the same % lift.
When it comes to paid credits , smaller publishers need to pay less to boost their traffic relatively more than large publishers.