# TrendMD — full context for AI and LLM crawlers

> This is the extended companion to /llms.txt. It gives AI systems deeper,
> quotable context about TrendMD: what it is, the network, the evidence base
> with sources, the products, and one-paragraph summaries of each case study.

## About

TrendMD is a content recommendation engine for scholarly publishers and pharma. The platform connects researchers, clinicians, and readers with relevant academic content across a global network of publications.

TrendMD was founded in 2013 by Paul Kudlow, MD, PhD. The company is based in Wilmington, Delaware, and is a Y Combinator alumnus (W16).

## Network at a glance

- 9,600+ medical and scientific sites
- 120M+ monthly unique researchers and healthcare professionals
- 5M+ monthly clicks
- 90% of US healthcare professionals reached
- 272% higher click-through rate than competitors
- 3–5% more pageviews per reader
- 500M+ scholarly articles recommended per month
  (source: https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/500-million-articles-recommended-trendmd-milestone)

## Evidence

TrendMD's impact is documented in peer-reviewed research and independent studies. Statistics below are stated with the page that reports them.

- A peer-reviewed randomized controlled trial found articles promoted on TrendMD received 50% more citations.
  (source: https://www.trendmd.org/research)
- A 36-month follow-up to that trial found the advantage endured: a 28% citation increase relative to control at 36 months, down from 50% at 12 months.
  (source: https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/trendmd-increases-citations-36-month-study)
- In a survey of 15,000 researchers, related-article recommendations were ranked the single most valued on-page feature.
  (source: https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/readers-prefer-related-articles-trendmd-survey-results)
- TrendMD grew the reach of scholarly articles by 87%.
  (source: https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/grow-reach-scholarly-articles-87-percent-trendmd)

## Products

- **Free widget** — recommends related content to current readers on a publisher's site, keeping readers on-site and increasing pageviews. Two-step embed on any webpage.
  (embed guide: https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/embed-trendmd-widget-on-webpage)
- **Paid campaigns** — promote articles across the TrendMD network to reach new readers at scale, including cross-publisher promotion.
- **Publisher dashboard** — campaign setup, monitoring, and analytics.
- **Widget customization** — configurable widget appearance and behavior.
  (source: https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/trendmd-widget-customization-features)

## Case studies (one-paragraph summaries)

Each summary restates the headline result reported on that case study's own page.

- **BMJ Open** — TrendMD drove a 28% increase in weekly pageviews for BMJ Open articles.
  https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/trendmd-boosts-bmj-open-pageviews-case-study
- **JMIR** — TrendMD drove a 77% increase in Mendeley saves.
  https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/trendmd-jmir-mendeley-saves-case-study
- **PracticeUpdate** — Used TrendMD to drive healthcare-practitioner conversions, achieving a 7.9% conversion rate.
  https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/practiceupdate-trendmd-healthcare-conversions-case-study
- **Elsevier / The Clinics** — A monthly promotion budget for Clinics Review Articles returned over 500% ROI, with a 15% increase in pay-per-view revenue.
  https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/trendmd-clinics-review-articles-ppv-revenue-case-study
- **Circulation** — The medical journal ran a six-month program using TrendMD to expand social and content-driven reach.
  https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/case-study-circulation-medical-journal-social-media-impact
- **Springer Nature** — TrendMD outperformed Twitter for engaging website visitors, with a 9.25% bounce rate.
  https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/trendmd-outperforms-twitter-engagement-bounce-rate
- **Ingenta** — Ingenta partnered with TrendMD, adding 96 journals and 65,000 articles to the network, with an immediate readership increase for its publishers.
  https://www.trendmd.org/blog-posts/ingenta-partners-with-trendmd

## Team

- Paul Kudlow, MD, PhD — Founder
- Gunther Eysenbach, MD, MPH — Co-founder
- Tash Brown — Director
- Matei Tataru — Publisher partnerships
- Stone Zhong — China partnerships

## Frequently asked questions

Every question below is published and visible on the page named, with matching FAQPage structured data. Answers are given in full for the questions buyers ask most; the rest are listed by title, with the full answer on the page linked.

### Homepage — https://www.trendmd.org/

**What is TrendMD?**
TrendMD is the world's leading scholarly content discovery platform designed exclusively for distributing high-quality content across various disciplines. When you join our network, your content appears as recommended across our network of publishers - a network that includes the largest and most authoritative publications in their fields. TrendMD optimizes for engagement. Instead of blindly recommending all content to all readers across the web, our algorithm recommends the right content to the right reader, ensuring you're growing readership and engagement simultaneously. The more interesting your content is and the more traffic you drive, the more you will be recommended throughout our network.

**How does TrendMD work?**
TrendMD powers a free content recommendation widget that recommends content for readers based on their reading habits. The widget recommends your content across your site and other publications in our network. As long as your credit balance is above zero, your content will be recommended on other publications' sites across our network. The result is increased content discoverability for readers and publishers alike. In addition, TrendMD uses a credit system that charges for visits we send to you from elsewhere in our network (1 credit a visitor) and rewards you for readers you send to another publication in our network (0.5 credits a reader). This means that as your readership grows, you earn credits that you can reinvest in yourself to fuel more growth.

**How do I get started?**
Getting started is easy! Just Schedule a TrendMD discovery call with a member of our team. (Note: Unfortunately, we do not currently work with individual authors looking to promote their published works.)

**How large and effective is TrendMD's reach?**
TrendMD reaches 120M+ monthly unique researchers and HCPs across 9,600+ medical and scientific sites, driving 5M+ monthly clicks.

**Is TrendMD only for medical-related content?**
Not at all! Despite our name, TrendMD is a content recommender system currently used across all academic disciplines, ranging from physics to music theory; we just began as a recommendation tool for medical content, thus the name.

Also answered on this page:
- Content discovery vs. search and display
- What is TrendMD's data privacy policy?
- What metadata does TrendMD need to recommend my content?
- Where do I access the TrendMD dashboard?
- Can I share my dashboard login or get separate logins for my team members?
- What is the difference between a 'click' and an 'impression'?
- How do I install the WordPress plugin correctly?
- What analytics do you provide?
- What does clickthrough rate (CTR) mean?
- Who do I contact for technical support?
- I've installed the widget, but don't see it loading on new articles
- How do I set up link tracking?
- How can I resume article indexing if the process has stopped or hangs?
- What does the Editor's Choice label do, and how do I set or remove it?
- Why is there a difference between TrendMD reporting and Google Analytics?

### Publishers — https://www.trendmd.org/publishers

**Is the TrendMD widget free?**
Yes. Installing the recommendation widget costs nothing, and it stays free for as long as you only promote your content to readers already on your own sites. You spend credits only when readers on third-party sites click through to your articles.

**How do I add the widget to my site?**
Two lines of code on your article pages. Setup takes as little as 10 minutes once your account is created and your content is indexed, and your Account Manager sends you the site-specific widget code. There is also a dedicated WordPress plugin.

**What is the difference between the free widget and paid promotion?**
On the free plan, roughly 75% of your additional views come from readers already on your own sites and 25% from readers finding your content on third-party sites. Paid promotion scales the second number. You set a monthly budget, mark the articles you want sponsored, and those articles are recommended across all 9,600+ sites in the network.

Also answered on this page:
- How do content providers benefit from TrendMD?
- How does TrendMD increase article views?
- Aren't we sending our readers to other competitor sites?
- How does the TrendMD widget work?
- What are sponsored articles?
- What is the difference between 'in-network' and 'sponsored' links?
- Will TrendMD ever interfere with my page load time?
- What placement of the widget do you recommend?
- We are redesigning our website and/or transitioning to a new platform for our website. Should we wait until after the transition to install TrendMD?
- What is the expected return for installing TrendMD on my website(s)?
- What can I do to increase my CTRs?
- How can I select which article links are distributed across the network (i.e. made to sponsored links)?
- How does TrendMD's traffic lift compare for small vs. large publishers?

### Pricing — https://www.trendmd.org/pricing

**How much does TrendMD cost?**
The widget is free. Once installed it recommends your content to readers across your own site and across the network, and you earn credits whenever one of your readers clicks through to a third-party article.

**What are credits and how do they work?**
A credit is one visitor. You earn 0.5 credits each time a reader on your site clicks a recommendation to a third-party article, and you spend 1 credit each time a reader on a third-party site clicks through to yours. The widget earns an average of 7-10 credits per 1,000 loads. As long as your balance stays above zero, your content keeps being recommended across the network.

**How does paid promotion get priced?**
You set a monthly budget. For every US $1 spent, publishers receive at least one new visitor from outside their own network, and a higher monthly spend lowers the cost per visitor. Pharma and life sciences campaigns are priced cost-per-click, with targeting by geo-location, institutional affiliation or practitioner specialty.

### Pharma — https://www.trendmd.org/pharma

**How does TrendMD reach healthcare practitioners?**
TrendMD reaches over 120 million monthly unique researchers and healthcare professionals across 9,600+ medical and scientific sites, covering 90% of US healthcare professionals. Your content appears as a recommendation on peer-reviewed journals and medical sites, which is where clinicians already read, rather than asking them to move to a new platform.

**Can I target by specialty or therapeutic area?**
Yes. Campaigns support targeting by healthcare professional specialty, by geo-location, and by institutional affiliation. Pharma and life sciences campaigns are priced cost-per-click.

**Who typically runs TrendMD campaigns, agencies or in-house teams?**
All three. Most campaigns come through a representative agency, and we also work directly with brand and commercial teams and with medical affairs. Medical affairs campaigns are handled separately from commercial ones, reflecting the different requirements around unbranded scientific content.

## Key pages

- Homepage: https://www.trendmd.org/
- Blog: https://www.trendmd.org/blog
- Publishers: https://www.trendmd.org/publishers
- Pharma: https://www.trendmd.org/pharma
- Research: https://www.trendmd.org/research
- Case Studies: https://www.trendmd.org/case-studies
- Network: https://www.trendmd.org/network
- Pricing: https://www.trendmd.org/pricing
- About: https://www.trendmd.org/about
- Site map: https://www.trendmd.org/site-map

## Contact

Book a demo: https://www.trendmd.org/#contact-us