Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I don't find it that bad, really. For the searches I do, Wikipedia normally has spam-free and accurate information. I laughed at BaseVinyl's post, but I can honestly say that I *do* often search Wikipedia first, simply because (again, for my types of searches) it usually has what I want to find.
I got in on the Internet toward the end of the days of "use-this-engine-for-this-search-type." It appears that those days may be coming back in a slightly different way. I think users are going to gradually start searching certain sites (as opposed to using certain engines) when they're looking for particular types of information. Firefox and search add-ins (and search keywords) make this a lot easier.
One thing is for sure - they've been showing up a LOT more often lately.
Ever since they implemented the <rel="nofollow"> back in 2007 January.
Something else I've not really seen discussed is the architecture of the Wiki. I'll have to admit, they do a fine job of categorizing everything. Their taxonomy is unmatched. Ever look at the underlying structure/outline of their pages? Clean...
And, for reference...
Wikipedia: General disclaimer
[en.wikipedia.org...]
Wikipedia is an online open-content collaborative encyclopedia, that is, a voluntary association of individuals and groups working to develop a common resource of human knowledge. The structure of the project allows anyone with an Internet connection to alter its content. Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information.That is not to say that you will not find valuable and accurate information in Wikipedia; much of the time you will. However, Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here. The content of any given article may recently have been changed, vandalized or altered by someone whose opinion does not correspond with the state of knowledge in the relevant fields.
Emphasis theirs.
"utorrent" will show Wiki number one, and the ACTUAL authors of the software BELOW it... LOL it's so stupid...
In this particular case, the author's site shows up on top, and Wikipedia at #5. But you said "not literally", so I guess you mean that there are OTHER unnamed software packages where Wiki appears ahead of the author's site.
While I think it may be most "correct" for Google to show the author's site as #1, I think that in many or most cases, Wikipedia may be more useful than the author's site at giving the sercher a good overview of the software package.
Personally, I ALWAYS use Wikipedia FIRST when looking into a software package (either open-source or commercial - but particularly useful for open-source). Open-source software authors and open-source software sites (like SourceForge) have a tendency to bury their documentation, and don't seem to think it useful to provide an overview on the first page.
The Wikipedia article will generally give me a NPOV, and links to and comparisons with similar packages, which I find more useful on initial investigation than the author's own site. It will often give me useful insite into who the user base is, how active the developer community is, etc. which can often be difficult to determine from the author's site.
When *I* got to high school, I was not allowed to use them as a source. So why is Google using it? Perhaps because *most* only read at an 8th grade level? I know that my niece in a highly respected school has been told, just as with any encyclopedia, she *cannot* use Wikipedia as a *source* for her writing. Amen, I say.
BUT, does that mean Google should not give it authority? Thus, back to, what it "authority?"
One thing that's not clear to me is if Wikipedia has achieved this status as a natural result of Google's algorithm, or if Google has manually given them some kind of "bonus" in the SERPS. One thing is for sure - they've been showing up a LOT more often lately.
Why is it on top? Because its popular and people like it. People wo go there think its a cool site. Its a fad, the in thing. Also many people go there to read because its a friendly site with no advertisements on there and people generally trust the information on there. If they want to read further into a subject, wiki has reference links.
Sites that are "informational" and plastered with adsense ads, people do not trust as much because of all the adsense spam sites that are out there. People know that a site plastered with ads has one purpose, to make money.
I am more than sure google knows this, that is why they are showing on the top. Wiki is popular.
If you want to outrank wiki, make sure you have more content than they do.
This has thus far worked for me in every instance where I had a site that was outranked by Wikipedia. I would maybe phrase it "more and more extensive/thorough content" - but the gist is the same.
I myself use it a lot, and it doesn't bother me in the slightest to find it at or near the top of the serps - I wouldn't consider it a source, but more an aggregate of sources. If I want to get a quick overview, I go to wikipedia. If I want go deeper (and I'm a major league history dweeb) then I go to the cites - via wikipedia. Most of WP pages I land on are positively overflowing with cites. I love that - to me it's the equivalent of going into a book store and walking out with almost more books than I can carry. Why wouldn't Google (who aims to be the biggest aggregator of all) love that too?
[edited by: netmeg at 7:22 pm (utc) on Feb. 26, 2007]
Wiki is the best all in one resource for research on the web. If its outranking your site, join wiki and post some relevant content and use your site as a reference. I am more than sure wiki would love to have some more volunteers.
2) I may not like Wikipedia but I also don't promote the idea with spamming it with links to one's own sites. Besides with the use of rel=nofollow by Wikipedia this eliminates any SEO advantage of the links.
Why is it on top? Because its popular and people like it. People wo go there think its a cool site. Its a fad, the in thing.
Sites that are "informational" and plastered with adsense ads, people do not trust as much because of all the adsense spam sites that are out there. People know that a site plastered with ads has one purpose, to make money.
Yes I'm sure there are a small percentage of people who look down at sites with ads, but there is no evidence that this is a pervasive opinion. Ads are a fact of life and the average person understands this. At least when a site is displaying ads, I know what their source of revenue is. Knowing the revenue source (e.g. following the money) can help provide a clue about what motivates a site.
I am more than sure google knows this, that is why they are showing on the top. Wiki is popular.
Want proof, look at what happened to about.com when they started plastering their site with ads. Their popularity plummeted and you hardly see them in the top ten anymore.
There is a manual promotion to the top of the serps, they are called "quality raters" and they are out there.
As I understand it (and as I believe GoogleGuy once more or less confirmed), the role of "quality raters" has been to supply data for benchmarking or profiling purposes, not to replace automated processes.
Maybe this would be a good time for Ronburk to step in with another explanation of data mining and "black boxes." :-)
A true an unbiased informational site would not care that much about SEO and care about spreading the wealth of infomation in anyway possible. Only people who want to make money from the internet care about SEO.
Furthermore, what is wrong with wanting to make money from the Internet? Making a living off of sharing one's knowledge and efforts has been practiced for millennia. Teachers are paid to teach and writers are paid to write. We don't question a teacher's motives for being expected to receive compensation for teaching and we don't question a reporter's motives because they expect to be compensated for writing newspaper articles. Why should we question a web publisher's motives simply because they put ads on a web site? Furthermore why should we trust someone's motives any more simply because they doing something for free? This is foolish.
As I understand it (and as I believe GoogleGuy once more or less confirmed), the role of "quality raters" has been to supply data for benchmarking or profiling purposes, not to replace automated processes.
I "love" how quick some people are to try and find evidence that their whoas are caused by Google using some manual means to screw with SERPs in favor of one site or against another site.
Its because there are way too many "informational" adsense sites out there that are absolute crap. I am not saying yours is crap by no means, but look at all the MFA's out there that scrape content or just are putting out bad information just to make some adsense bucks. There are a ton of them. What really kills me is that google allows bot created site to display adsense on them and they do nothing about it.
People are getting real turned off to adsense "informational" sites because of the information on it is not always correct. In ways, google is shooting itself in the foot by letting the MFA's that scrape content or are robot built to be allowed. Think of the potential advertising dollars google loses out on by placing wiki towards the top.
Its because there are way too many "informational" adsense sites out there that are absolute crap. I am not saying yours is crap by no means, but look at all the MFA's out there that scrape content or just are putting out bad information just to make some adsense bucks. There are a ton of them.People are getting real turned off to adsense "informational" sites because of the information on it is not always correct. In ways, google is shooting itself in the foot by letting the MFA's that scrape content or are robot built to be allowed. Think of the potential advertising dollars google loses out on by placing wiki towards the top.
Yes MFA's and the scraper sites are annoying but no evidence has been presented to support any belief that these sites are having any impact on the way people view legitimate commercial informational websites.
In my own case, my traffic continues to climb, people link to my site as often as ever and the CTR/eCPM of my ads is at all time highs. In short I'm seeing no evidence that people are burning out on ads or are associating ads with a lack of quality.
I've been in this business for almost a dozen years. Year in and year out people come along and claim that users don't trust sites with ads and claim that users are growing very wary of commercial websites. More than anything this is wishful thinking because none of the evidence supports this.
As long as one is careful as to the types of ads and quantity of ads one allows on their site there will be no issues with people looking poorly upon the site because of the ads.
[edited by: KenB at 10:29 pm (utc) on Feb. 26, 2007]
Your one of the exceptions in a very small niche. Most topics wiki covers does not have exceptions though.
You should add to wiki and present links to your site as reference. It may have no SEO advantage except traffic! People do click those links and follow them.
Why Is Wikipedia On Top in Search Results?
They validate! That's why. All this time I've been scratching my head wondering why and it was so obvious. ;)
I've fixed several instances of said bias over the past few years, and it invariably results in a big fight. Sometimes after a few times putting it back it sticks, other times I give up. Now, I admit that some of the links I've put in WP have been both on-topic and self-promotional, but leaving those aside there are other things I've put in that are links to unaffiliated sites. I actually have a better track record with the self-promotional links than the unaffiliated links. And, in two specific instances, these attempts by "interested parties" to purge the record may have had some minor impact on elections.
DumpedbyG also says: "If the tens of thousands of people want to read the biased articles let them."
Obviously, this isn't the place to explain why propaganda is a bad thing and why, for instance, many bloggers spend a lot of time pointing out lies and misleading statements in MSM reports about political and news matters. But, many people do feel quite strongly about such issues.
I suspect it's natural. As others have pointed out, it's the very model of a naturally-high-ranked site: number of pages and number of internal links and number of external links all huge and showing natural growth patterns and natural interrelationships; truly natural word frequencies -- any automatic test you can imagine that Google might use to spot unnatural behavior, Wiki will pass easily.
They have been showing up a lot lately. I think Google let the spam detectors loose. And here's my guess why.
In certain categories (travel!) the search results are 99.99% (or more) spam. Now, suppose Google got rid of 99% of the spam (an extremely aggressive goal)? The results would STILL be 99% spam -- in other words, ALL BUT ONE of the good sites would be buried out of the top 100 results.
That's horrible, from the point of view of someone who isn't interested in promoting one particular site, but just wants to find SOME good site.
Now, suppose Google can kill 99.9% of the spam, but at the same time kills 50% of the good sites? Is this an improvement?
Yes, it absolutely is. Now maybe 1 search result per page is some use, and that's a phenomenal improvement.
Now, you may say some good site that used to be #150 now is nowhere -- but for most searchers and all practical purposes position #150 is close enough to nowhere to no never mind. The point is (on these numbers) ten potentially good sites died to make nine OTHER good sites appear in the top 100. Which is good for everyone on earth except webmasters, and even good for 45% of owners of good websites.)
The actual mileage may differ. But the point is, when it gets deep enough, it stops mattering how many good sites you kill in order to clean up the spam. Because if you don't kill the spam, ALL the good sites are dead.
Your one of the exceptions in a very small niche. Most topics wiki covers does not have exceptions though.
You should add to wiki and present links to your site as reference. It may have no SEO advantage except traffic! People do click those links and follow them.
I see no reason or benefit in my participating in Wikipedia or providing content to it, when I would realize a bigger benefit from putting the same content on my own site.
To all those Wikipedia fan boys, wake up. Truly qualified people are busy and the only way to really get them to share their knowledge is to give them something tangible in return beyond a warm fuzzy. Sometimes that something is simply professional publicity (e.g. the byline in an article for a respected trade journal), but often times that something is paying them and paying them well. Highly qualified people should not be expected to donate their expertise to a website just to suit your "we're doing it for free so we are superior" elitism. Especially when said site helps promote mediocre by allowing anonymity which allows people to escape responsibility for what they post.
--Edit--
I don't claim to be a highly qualified individual, rather I recruit highly qualified people to write articles for my site and I pay them very competitive rates.
[edited by: KenB at 1:32 am (utc) on Feb. 27, 2007]
>Yes MFA's and the scraper sites are annoying but no evidence has been presented to support any belief that these sites are having any impact on the way people view legitimate commercial informational websites.
And precisely the same thing can (and should) be said about Wiki pages.
Pot, meet Kettle.
Truly qualified people are busy and the only way to really get them to share their knowledge is to give them something tangible in return beyond a warm fuzzy.
I am truly qualified, with years of practical experience in a subject area on which I have often been invited to speak to colleagues and students. Without meaning to appear immodest I am quite well known and believe that I am well respected in that particular field.
I am busy.
I regularly contribute to wikipedia in this subject area, and others when I feel I know enough for it to be of value. Not usually by creating whole articles, but adding to them, providing citations, editing a little and general tidying up for accuracy. I know several colleagues who do the same. I seriously doubt we are somehow unique. There is no way of knowing who wiki editors are, but it would be a mistake to assume that the well qualified and busy are not among them.
>This entire post is supposition and personal opinion devoid of any evidence to support said claims.
>Yes MFA's and the scraper sites are annoying but no evidence has been presented to support any belief that these sites are having any impact on the way people view legitimate commercial informational websites.
And precisely the same thing can (and should) be said about Wiki pages.
Pot, meet Kettle.
I regularly contribute to wikipedia in this subject area, and others when I feel I know enough for it to be of value. Not usually by creating whole articles, but adding to them, providing citations, editing a little and general tidying up for accuracy. I know several colleagues who do the same. I seriously doubt we are somehow unique. There is no way of knowing who wiki editors are, but it would be a mistake to assume that the well qualified and busy are not among them.
No wiki does NOT have by design "good content" wiki has NO content, it is user driven. There is no way to verify that the information on any given wiki page is even *true* or not. If nobody edits an article, it can be total fairy-tale fiction and still get passed off as "fact"...Bit of a late reply, but what I mean by good content is keyword heavy, related content and its backlinks are very well targetted.This is why I don't like wiki, the "content" is VERY unreliable.
I do believe though that google has given them a boost, I have only really noticed WIKI coming up a lot for non-niche keywords in the past few months.
noticed WIKI coming
A wiki is a type of software. Wikipedia is a webserver that uses this kind of software.
Bit of a late reply, but what I mean by good content is keyword heavy, related content and its backlinks are very well targetted.
I do believe though that google has given them a boost, I have only really noticed WIKI coming up a lot for non-niche keywords in the past few months.
wikipedia is top because of design. I've been doing the same thing since '96 (without the links in) but linking related words from one page to another. I'm not top on for each and every keyword for my geographic area, but I'm in more results consistantly- "clogging" the SE's.
I now use two menuing systems. The primary menu is a long drawn out vertical menu running down the side of the page (static links). The other is a hierarchical JavaScript based drop down menu and "tabs" across the top of each page (it is JavaScript based so that it doesn't have to get reloaded from page to page). The first menu is for bots and casual user surfing. The second menu is for mission oriented people. These two menus also ensure that there is a comprehensive menu on every page in the two spots people are most accustom to seeing menus. I also try to cross link articles and resources via a relegated articles/resources section at the bottom of some pages. This allows people to continue reading my other articles on the topic they are apparently interested in. I do some cross linking of articles and resources (ala Wikipedia) from keywords within articles, but this is pretty time consuming so it is limited.
Cracks me up that everyone seemes to believe that if I weren't here they would be on top. Users can follow internal links for hours just following related words without ever going into a structured menu. Google's not giving them 'points.'
Let's put aside all the external factors that have caused the Wiki to become the Authoritative Information Guerrilla.
Have you taken a close look at how the Wiki is structured? That site is the benchmark for what all of us should be striving towards.
They have very little code bloat. They've provided a clean indexing path for the bots. And, the HTML/XHTML validates. The interlinking structure is a piece of art. They still have some things to correct before being perfect but they are as close as it gets for a site of that size.
Wiki, you fail WAI Level A Conformance. Your CSS also has errors. Clean up those two issues and I'll be happy to cheer for you. But, leave my positions alone! ;)
