Table 2.

Page categorization and example posts.

Categorization	Description	Example page and post
1. Patient Support	Characterized by emotional and informational support for patients of the condition. Often included motivational messages, links, and posts by affected individuals.	Kick Cancer “No matter how scary things may seem or how bad they may look, keep going and never give up! #kickcancer”
2. General Support	Characterized by emotional and informational support for caregivers, family, friends, and some patients themselves. Often included motivational messages and posts by supporters of affected individuals.	Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance “I hope they find a way to diagnose this disease sooner so more people can be cured and not have to go thru the devastation so many of us have had to go thru. Rest in peace daddy.”
3. Marketing/Promotion	Characterized by promotion of specific products, events, or institutions. Included self-promotion of the page or events and organization run by the page managers.	Cancer Sucks “New Cancer Sucks Purple Heart design tee’s available in both men’s and women’s styles! Get yours now!”
4. Information/Awareness	Characterized by a focus on raising awareness of a condition or facilitating information exchange. Included many links to information, treatment recommendations, and research pages.	Breast Cancer Awareness “medicalxpress.com: Accelerated radiation treatment effective for noninvasive breast cancer”
5. Wikipedia	Some pages simply provided information from Wikipedia on the condition.	Cancer “From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia”
6. Blank	Blank pages were pages that addressed the condition, but did not have any posts.	Diarrhea None
7. Other	Any pages that did not fit the above categories were classified as “other.” For example, we classified personal blogs by people who were affected by a condition as “other”.	Mrs Lupus “Here is one of my most popular blog posts, it is not very informative but it is written with raw emotion that all us lupies can understand.”