Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I appreciate that PR juice is shared among all the outgoing links in any article (and the internal ones). But even small PR7 articles with just one or two OGLs, and hardly any wikified words, don't seem to be passing PR. The link destinations are PR3s and even PR2s in some cases. For all my experience with PR this just doesn't add up.
OK, toolbar PR doesn't matter etc., etc. I know the argument and I agree that it plays very little part in SERPs so let's avoid making this a discussion about whether PR helps in SERPs ;). This post is about Wiki links: Am I alone in thinking that Google is not passing PR for them, strange though it may seem? Has anyone else noticed this behaviour?
Searching for site:en.wikipedia.org mypagename.html does bring up the relevant wiki page/s. So Google is seeing the links but, according to my suspicions, not passing the juice.
You can't search source code in Google. You can only search what Google sees on the page. The search you describe is a search for visible anchor text only, not for how Google might regard the coding of the link.
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Also, searching for site:en.wikipedia.org mypagename.html does bring up the relevant wiki page/s. So Google is seeing the links but, according to my suspicions, not passing the juice.
I'm not using the existence of the anchor text as any advanced proof. It's simply that wiki is probably not sticking my link in a js wrapper or suchlike when Googlebot visits them. The issue here is the PR.
PS: Sometimes my anchor is the URL
The Info is not correct unproven etc.
The Info is not correct unproven etc.
Are you referring to my suspicion that wiki links aren't passing PR? Have you done any testing on this?
In fact, this same site has quite a few links going to it from different - but related - topics (it is considered an authority site in its field, but not by Google).
I don't believe that Wiki links pass much PR
But if it looks like a (non-condomed) link and smells like a link....
Would Google manually block the passing of PR from Wikipedia? I mean, these are links that anybody can create. Just like on link farms. Or is this tin-foil territory?
Interestingly (and its only a sample of one), I had a link removed from a wikipedia page - and the traffic to that site from Google increased afterwards. Almost as if having a link on Wikipedia is actually a negative filter point...
Probably a coincidence, but I hadn't been working on that site anywhere around that time...
I don't think an algorithm of 'only in external links, re-added a few times by same user, etc' would be too difficult given the public history of each page on the site
On en.wikipedia.org quality - last time ended up there few days ago, the links for article were like current live.com SERPs - yes, on subject, but not even 2nd tier best choices, 3rd tier.
So I think wiki links still have a big value, but there might be exceptions.
PR3 from the linked folder on my site
PR2 from other pages of the linked folder on my site
I compared with an other folder on this site, about same creation date, but no PR7 links from Wikipedia. Exactly the same, folder index PR3, rest of folder PR2
I started an anti-Wikipedia site because they wouldn't take the bio down. Then the bio got longer and longer, because the anonymous teenage administrators on Wikipedia decided that I should be taught a lesson.
They have five of my sites listed as "external links" at the bottom of my bio. For months they were live links. Then they decided that all five should be put on the Wikipedia "spam blacklist." That was because I started redirecting them to another anti-Wikipedia site (not mine) when I detected the Wikipedia referrer. I stopped doing that last June, but they're still mad over this, so the five sites are de-linked, and anyone who comes along and tries to edit them into hot links gets intercepted by the spam blacklist and the edit is aborted.
The bottom line to this silliness is that for certain periods during this long war, the URLs were hot, while during other periods they were de-linked and you had to paste it into your browser address bar. But either way, it makes absolutely no difference to my traffic. In fact, when the links are hot, I get only about a dozen extra visitors to each of my sites from Wikipedia. No big deal.
The problem I have with Google and Wikipedia is that Google ranks the Wikipedia pages insanely high in the search results. Then the scraper sites grab Wikipedia's content, thinking that it's good content for AdSense. And guess what -- even the scraper sites rank well! There are a couple scraper sites that have grabbed my bio, and split it up into 10 different pages to avoid duplicate penalties, and amazingly enough, each page of the scraper site does well for the terms I'm searching.
Google has problems with Wikipedia. If they deprive Wikipedia of its ability to pass PR, that would only be the start of a long list of things they should to do fix their Wikipedia problem.
For example, the article Talk pages, the User pages, and the User_talk pages are indexed by bots. Wikipedia won't disallow them in robots.txt because Wikipedia's own internal search function is so crummy, that Wikipedia editors wouldn't be able to find anything. But these non-article pages are filled with libel and flame wars. If Wikipedia isn't smart enough to keep those out of the bots, then the bots should do it for them.
In a search for my name, the bio comes up as number one, and under that is my User_talk page. All it says when you click on it is, "This user is banned from editing Wikipedia."
What a joke. Google, take a look at how you index Wikipedia. Half of it should be treated as spam.
I compared with an other folder on this site, about same creation date, but no PR7 links from Wikipedia. Exactly the same, folder index PR3, rest of folder PR2
theoretically SEs may (and should) decide to pass or suppress the link benefits (PageRank - authority - anchor text value - etc..), to pass a percentage of any component
It doesn't surprise me at all - Matt Cutts has hinted that this would happen.
:D
Go and check.
I haven't seen it for months, and since then two interesting things showed up on the sidebar to the right... things i clearly remember posting here, and posted by others. I wonder if this will even be taken to G in full time. Wouldn't hurt them at all. Neither us. Nor users.
If they are implemented it's gonna be an interesting day for webmasters throughout the world. I mean a LOT of people would say, hey G actually KNEW all the way! But also it would chill a lot of nerves in my opinion. This IS the way it should have been right from the start of picking up wiki and blogs.
Am i right or am i right :P
if they don't believe the links are quality and you don't put a link condom on it - they will do it for you
Ah, OK. I thought it was specific to Wikipedia. Maybe Google is blocking all links because of the low quality of some Externals... and Reference links not getting PR is the incidental damage.
[edited by: Eltiti at 1:34 pm (utc) on Dec. 16, 2006]
I don't think the english WP links count as I can't find any listed as backward links. Might be the intentionally broken link command though.
Just found 2 backlinks from the vietnamese Wikipedia and also from the danish one. I speak neither of these languages..
only the first 100 links on a page are counted.
This external link section on a Wikipedia page is always far beyond the first 100 links.
On the other side, I have created a new english Wikipedia article, because there was a PR7 article, where my site had been not related enough.
In the new english Wikipedia article, I placed 3 links to my site and linked from the PR7 article to my new one. This Wikipedia article reached PR5 in only 2 month.
I take it your opinion is that your page got PR from the Wikipedia article. I'd be interested in hearing from anybody else who feels they got PR from the English wikipedia. I'd dearly love for my theory to be debunked.
The point about the first 100 links wasn't one I considered but I went back and checked and at least two of my long standing "Reference" links are within the first 100 hrefs.
mattg3, I believe that the backlinks you're not seeing is solely because of the "broken" Google. Yahoo's backlinks work and, as they too subscribe to "no follow", Yahoo's backlink check should tell you if someone is using the link condom.
Pages (1,108,755) ¦ Inlinks (63,395)
on wikipedia
We did not find results for: http://www.example.com domain:wikipedia.org. Try the suggestions below or type a new query above.
Hmm
>> This Wikipedia article reached PR5 in only 2 month.
I take it your opinion is that your page got PR from the Wikipedia article
Not my page, my Wikipedia article got PR5 in 2 month.
My own site was not influenced by the link
wikipedia/important city PR 7 link to wikipedia/event in important city
wikipedia/event in important city PR5 link to example.com/my-big-reportage-about-event-in-important-city
example.com/my-big-reportage-about-event-in-important-city PR4
At the same time, I'd expect a link's sticking power to be a factor on any wiki. The whole idea of a wiki involves the "community" in policing the dross. So link age would probably play into the picture, and possiby more intensely than on most sites. So I'm theorizing here that PR might pass more effectively over time, as a link gains history without being edited/deleted/replaced etc.
Only way to stop abuse.
I too believe that there is some SERP benefit from being linked from a Wiki article. The extent of the benefit probably varies from article to article. And, as you say Tedster, it makes sense to value long-standing links more.
... it is hard to measure with the plethora of outbound links
I have a link from a Wikipedia PR6 page to a relatively new page on my site. The Wikipedia page has only a few outbound links (less than 10) The page on my site has some really good inbound links (with varying PRs, some PR4, and some PR5). Currently its PR is 4 suggesting that Wikipedia may not be passing any PR. Nevertheless, both the link as well as the page are relatively new, and age may be a factor here.
