Our Story: WellnessVerge

Our Origins

In 2012, we witnessed firsthand how misinformation and online scams were affecting people's decisions across all aspects of their lives—from wellness products to financial services, and everything in between.

At the time, there was little accountability for brands making bold claims online, and consumers had few reliable places to turn for honest feedback.

This led to the launch of HighYa in March 2013, a consumer advocacy website dedicated to honest product reviews and brand accountability. We built its platform with a modern design, user-friendly experience, and strict review guidelines, ensuring legitimacy and transparency in every customer review.

Within just a few years, we grew to serve 3-5 million monthly visitors and host hundreds of thousands of customer reviews, becoming a leading voice in consumer protection before platforms like Trustpilot emerged.

Building Trust Through Integrity

At HighYa, we developed a reputation for unwavering integrity. From day one, we made the conscious decision to manually review every customer submission before going live. This careful vetting process allowed us to detect unusual patterns, filter out hate speech and profanity, ensure proper grammar, and verify that each review provided genuine, helpful feedback.

As we recognized the growing need for transparent communication and received feedback, we pioneered a business engagement platform that allowed companies to claim their profiles and respond to published reviews, enabling them to constructively address customer concerns—without interfering in the pre-vetting process. If a customer felt their issue had been properly resolved, they had the option to voluntarily update or remove their review.

To further promote fairness, we also introduced a strict review flagging system, allowing businesses to challenge existing reviews—but only with compelling evidence. This safeguard prevented companies from misusing the feature to suppress legitimate criticism while ensuring accountability and integrity. At the same time, we carefully protected user privacy by never disclosing sensitive information that we had retained, ensuring that companies could not harass or intimidate customers outside the platform

Outside Oppression

In an era when federal regulations hadn't yet caught up with deceptive online marketing practices, we stood firm when companies pushed back against negative reviews. Many weren't accustomed to this new level of accountability, and we faced various pressures—from legal threats to bribes—to portray certain companies more favorably. We declined all such attempts to compromise our integrity, knowing they would undermine our commitment to honesty and truth. We even experienced cyberattacks (Layer 7 DDoS attacks).

When one company sued us in federal court over negative customer reviews on their product—despite the presence of positive reviews as well—we stood our ground. After 13 months of litigation, we received full legal vindication when the judge ruled in our favor, affirming that our transparent policies and consistent practices were legally sound.

Some companies went so far as to threaten their customers with lawsuits for leaving negative reviews, attempting to intimidate them into silence.

Our dedication to consumer protection earned recognition from federal authorities. In two separate Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawsuits against companies engaging in deceptive marketing practices that could mislead consumers, HighYa was cited as an authoritative source of consumer feedback, validating our role in protecting consumer interests.

The Transition to WellnessVerge

In March 2019, HighYa began facing significant challenges when Google’s algorithm changes began affecting our visibility and reach. We initially responded with careful analysis and numerous innovations to address these issues.

Despite implementing various improvements and seeing occasional promising results, we watched our traffic continue to decline—ultimately losing 75% over the next 15 months.

After further self-reflection and careful consideration, we decided to pivot our approach entirely. Rather than trying to rehabilitate HighYa's broad focus, we chose to create something new: a trusted editorial wellness website based solely on expert reviews.

This led to the launch of WellnessVerge in November 2020, where we assembled an impressive team of registered dietitians, medical doctors, and health experts to develop comprehensive, evidence-based product reviews. Our team created rigorous evaluation methodologies and decision trees to ensure consistent, objective assessments of wellness products.

This new approach quickly gained traction, reaching 450,000 monthly visitors within a year. However, in November 2021, we began experiencing another series of challenges with Google’s algorithm updates.

Despite our best efforts to adapt and innovate—which, again, occasionally showed promising results—each subsequent update seemed to erase our gains. By late 2023, we had lost about 90% of our peak traffic.

This period of reflection led us to a humbling realization: while our commitment to transparency and quality remained unwavering, we were facing insurmountable resource and logistical challenges.

We found ourselves competing with established giants like Healthline and VeryWellFit, government-backed resources like the Mayo Clinic, CDC, and PubMed, and even smaller publishers with deeper resources.

Despite our best intentions and rigorous standards, we needed to figure out a way to truly stand out in this crowded wellness space.

Reimagining Product Reviews as Experience Stories

These challenges led us to an important insight: rather than competing in a saturated market of expert-based wellness reviews, we needed to return to our roots of amplifying consumer voices—but in a more structured and meaningful way.

This realization has led us to transform traditional reviews into what we now call "Customer Experience Stories."

We've seen enough generic star ratings and vague reviews stating "This product worked for me, I recommend it." Such surface-level feedback, while common, fails to provide the comprehensive insight consumers need to make informed decisions.

That's why today, we're creating unique, tailored questionnaires for each brand—carefully crafted to help users think critically and constructively about their product experience.

Through thoughtfully designed questions and an intuitive user experience, we guide consumers to reflect deeply on their journey with each product. This structured approach helps extract objective, detailed information that goes far beyond simple ratings or general recommendations.

These questionnaires explore every aspect of the customer experience:

• Personal context (lifestyle, diet, exercise habits)
• Product usage details (duration, consistency, combinations)
• Specific outcomes across different areas of wellness
• Customer service interactions
• Value perception
• Unexpected benefits or challenges

What makes these Experience Stories unique is their ability to paint a complete picture. For instance, when someone shares their experience with a gut health supplement, we learn not just about the product's effects on a customer, but also about their dietary habits, lifestyle factors, and overall wellness routine. This context helps other consumers understand what might work best for their similar situations.

Looking Forward

As we transition to this new chapter and roll out these questionnaires across products, we're gradually retiring our editorial content authored by health experts and refining our messaging and user experience to align with this new direction in favor of these rich, contextual Customer Experience Stories.

Additionally, as the customer story volume grows for each brand, AI will assist in identifying trends and summarizing key takeaways, offering a clearer and more objective picture of each brand and product based on real consumer experiences.

We believe that the future of product evaluation lies not in single expert opinions, but in the collective wisdom of many, presented thoughtfully and with proper context.

We want to be fully transparent about this transition and our journey to this point. We’ve experienced highs and lows, faced major challenges, and navigated difficult decisions.

However, we're committed to maintaining the same principles that have guided us from the beginning: transparency, integrity, and a steadfast focus on helping people make better wellness decisions.

While the format may be changing, our mission remains the same—to be your trusted partner in navigating the complex world of wellness products and services.

Join us as we continue to evolve and work toward creating the most helpful, honest, and comprehensive wellness resource on the internet.

Legacy About Us Page

Our team of health professionals independently evaluates wellness products to recommend the ones that are worth considering.

And because no product is a magic bullet, through our content, we will show you how to make products you buy a part of a healthy lifestyle.

Our Beliefs

1. We believe that proper nutrition is a critical part of good health. And that’s why our content revolves around helping you build better lifestyle habits leading to improved nutrition.
2. In addition to good nutrition, we believe an active lifestyle is another pillar of good health. That is why we focus a lot of our effort on providing tips and insights on how anybody can add more movement into your lifestyle regardless of where they are on their wellness journey.
3. We believe no product alone — no matter how good it is — is the sole answer. However, worthy products can positively impact people’s lives when paired with healthy habits. That’s why we review hundreds of products to help you discover brands that put people first by encouraging them to live a healthy lifestyle in addition to consuming their products.
4. We believe that for wellness content to support your health effectively, it has to be created by licensed health professionals. That is why our editorial team is made up of only registered dietitians and medical doctors who produce compassionate, accurate, and actionable content.