“Can Gums Grow Back?”

In this post, I review Dr. Ellie’s website and the search term “can gums grow back”, which results in a monthly search volume of about 8,100 queries.

From Dental Fame To Dental Shame

My claim to dental fame came in my twenties when my dentist approached me at the end of my appointment and asked if it would be okay if she used my x-rays to show patients what a perfect set of teeth looked like. 

Well, color me flattered.

In the following years, I managed to squeak in this tidbit of info, that I was a dental supermodel, into various conversations as a point of pride; however, in more recent years, I have quietly archived the story when it became clear that my dental report card was becoming the equivalent of a 2.5 GPA; a passing grade but utterly unacceptable by asian parent standards .

I didn’t have cavities but my gums were receding, I was grinding my teeth at night and I dreaded going to the dentist because my sensitive teeth made me shrink with pain whenever that horrible metal hook hand-like tool came anywhere near my gums.

In fact, after every visit to the dentist where the hygienist would chip away at the plaque covering the root, the sensitivity was got worse until the protective plaque covering gradually built up again.

I’ve had half a dozen dentists over the years and they all blamed my gum recession on teeth grinding and aggressive brushing. Nothing could be done about the gum recession, they said, but once I was offered a mouth guard to stop the damage from grinding my teeth.

Now I was the one looking at some smug, twenty-something’s x-rays, posted side by side with my crummy ones.

A Consensus Among Experts

Every time I saw a new dentist or hygienist, I’d ask, “Hey, can gums grow back once they’ve receded?” 

Usually the response was “no”, and no one offered much more explanation than that.

The fact is, when I’d searched for the answers to this question online, only a few search results came back positive. For example, some sources claimed oil pulling was effective for removing bacteria and reversing gum recession. Oil pulling involves swishing edible oils in your mouth, usually oil derived from sunflower, sesame or coconut.

The thing is, I knew two people who told me they had deep pockets between teeth that had been at least partially restored, one after regular deep cleaning by a periodontist over the course of months, and the other with an change in diet and herbal remedies.

So naturally, no matter what a professional told me, I still had hope that it was possible.

More recently, when I relayed the two success stories to my dentist, she was unconvinced but sympathetically told me that it was likely related to a reduction in inflammation or something of the sort, not gum tissue regrowth.

Since the tiny gaps and pockets developing between my own teeth had become more pronounced, I asked her for a periodontist referral, fearing the recession would get worse. She dissuaded me, saying it’d be an unnessary cost for little or no gain.

So even though I was skeptical, I wasn’t sure that I had enough of a problem to see a specialist. Plus, I liked my dentist and believed (and still believe) she had my best interests at heart.

Xylitol, My Gateway To Healing

Soon after that appointment, I was on Youtube and a little colourful thumbnail caught my eye. It was a video titled, “Xylitol – The KEY To Better Oral Health”.

The reason it caught my eye was because my favourite chewing gum back when I was in Japan was called Xylitol and boy was it tasty. (Also, Dr. Ellie’s videos have very eye-catching video cover images.)

I’d never heard of Xylitol before going to Japan, and since being back in Canada, I don’t think I’ve ever heard it mentioned in any context. And now here it was being touted as a key factor to oral health.

Paraphrasing Dr. Ellie, xylitol mints or gum is recommended between meals to stimulate saliva, manage acidity and keep plaque “slippery” so bacteria will be easily rinsed away.

The xylitol video led me to another video of hers called “How to REGROW Receding Gums (FIX Gum Recession At Home).

In this video, Dr. Ellie explains in detail how it is possible to regenerate gum tissue and that, in some cases, it is even possible reverse associated bone loss.

More to the point, Dr. Ellie has content answering this question but, besides her Youtube video, her website content doesn’t appear.

I will leave the details for you to watch in the video.

SEO Optimization and Content Review of DrEllie.com

Today’s discussion relates to the question, “Can gums grow back”; specifically, if and how DrEllie.com is SEO optimized to be discoverable on this search term and what low-effort, high-impact improvements can be made.

Top Keywords For DrEllie.com

It’s useful to look at the lay of the land before getting too specific. What are the overall top keywords for DrEllie.com?

Of the twenty most popular keywords searched that resulted in Dr. Ellie’s home page, it’s estimated that all of them included Dr. Ellie’s name but two, and one of those two directly reference the name of her cleaning system, complete mouth care system. 

In other words, of the top twenty searches, 90% of users were aware of Dr. Ellie and were searching specifically for her. Their search intent was clear.

Of the top 100 most popular keywords or key phrases, approximately 60 of them appeared not to be searching directly for Dr. Ellie or making references to any Dr. Ellie-specific phrases such as complete mouth care system. 

In fact, it isn’t until the much lower in the page ranks do you start seeing the search terms open up to things like “whiten teeth” or “gum regrowth”. 

It’s not simply that users aren’t finding Dr. Ellie on these search terms. Her Youtube channel has 183K subscribers and her highest viewed video, “How To REGROW Receding Gums (FIX Gum Recession At Home)”, has an impressive 2.8 million views after six months.  She’s definitely being discovered.

But there is always room for improvement.

Capturing People Searching For “Gum Regrowth“

The image below from Answer The Public is a glimpse into the volume of users searching for “gum regrowth”, estimated at over 8,000 searches per month on this search term alone.

Other search terms such as “do gums grow back after tartar removal?” and “do gums grow back after deep cleaning?” suggest that people are also concerned with damage to their gums with dental cleanings, something Dr. Ellie directly addresses repeatedly in blog posts and videos.

Do Gums Grow Back? Results from Answerthepublic.com

In the Google search results page for “do gums grown back”, the Related Searches section from displays similar results as Answer The Public.

All of these questions to different degrees of specificity, are addressed on DrEllie.com. But how does her website fare in comparison to competing websites?

How DrEllie.com Ranks on “Can Gums Grow Back?”

Searching “can gums grow back” in Google incognito resulted in her Youtube video on the topic, “How to REGROW Receding Gums”, ranking in the top ten. But after scrolling page after page of more results, her website doesn’t appear in the results. In fact, the YouTube video was the only result relevant to Dr. Ellie that I could find.

Of course, search results are ever-changing and have many dependencies, but these results are a fairly good indicator that there’s optimization improvements needed on the website to get it to rank. I feel especially passionated about this given most if not all the results on the first few pages all paint a pretty dismal picture for anyone looking to improve the health of their gums.

Summary

On the topic of gum regrowth and healing, Dr. Ellie’s Youtube content and to a lesser degree, the content on her website is high-value. But as far as the content goes on DrEllie.com, it’s largely ignored and this pains me because her content and the quality of delivery is far superior to most, if not every result that appeared.

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Next, check out: Using Search Engine Data to Formulate Better FAQs, investigating opportunities for growth and readership with FAQs.