Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Hehehe...
That freakin' Wiki is a search magnet.
[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 3:45 pm (utc) on May 1, 2007]
[edit reason] no search kw's please. [/edit]
Perhaps the authority dial for mega sites is dialed a wee bit too high? Maybe?
I keep saying it: Where have all the little gems gone? Oooops, they're still there. Just nobody finding them anymore. :(
I keep saying it: Where have all the little gems gone?
Excellent question, though I'm not sure that is what's at issue here.
Just to play devil's advocate, it could be argued that the Wikipedia page in this case is the little gem, and that it outranks the Google pages because the Google pages are basically corporate fluff. The Wikipedia page provides first a simple description and then some more complex mathematical details, and it's a genuinely useful page.
The Wikipedia article is also on a more trafficked site than Brin-Page "The Anatomy of a Search Engine" article is, so it outranks that as well. Maybe Google should consider buying some links. ;)
PS: It might also be argued that if Google hadn't muddied the waters with the nofollow attribute, the Wikipedia link to the Brin-Page article might be kicking it up to #1.
[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:56 am (utc) on May 1, 2007]
pagerank [64.233.183.104]
Well apart from Google'd own listings there is only ONE who could make it in!
guess who? lol
[1][[b]edited by[/b]: Brett_Tabke at 3:44 pm (utc) on May 1, 2007][/1]
For the pagerank search, Yahoo shows the Google page with 12k backlinks, while the wiki page has about 9k (more than I would have guessed).
If you had a slave army of millions that work for free your website would rank high on everything.
Yes that is very true. I thought about it myself after posting my message.
I keep saying it: Where have all the little gems gone? Oooops, they're still there. Just nobody finding them anymore.
No cavey, they are there. You just have to scroll down the Wiki page to where the References and See also sections are. ;)
You just have to scroll down the Wiki page to where the References and See also sections are.
LMAO.
I remember reading somewhere you can find more if you jump to page 95 of the organic Google results, too.
Justin
Lemme see if I got this right. I need to search G to find Wiki, so that I can scroll down, to find the gems. OK, got it. I've just set my personalized G search to G's advanced search page, to only ever search Wiki. That's better.
Wow. I feel a sense of enlightenment. It's like the lightbulb just went on. The Web = Wikipedia. But wait a minute. I thought the Web = Google. Man, I'm still confused. ;-)
OK, lemme search on some other big words: "baseball," "football," "basketball," "soccer" ... Well, there is Wiki again, pretty much #2 in every search. How about: "politics," "love." Hmmm, there they are again, #2, everywhere. I guess G is right. Wikipedia is the new Web.
What else do I see (under Wikipedia, of course). Hmmm, I see a lot of Y!, DMOZ, and a few big sites starting with "A". Man, what would the Web be without Wiki, Y!, DMOZ, and those Big A's...and G to help us find them... ;-)
You just have to scroll down the Wiki page to where the References and See also sections are
Ah, but no commercial sites are not allowed in references. So back to buying AdWords for any real business.
It's great for Google's business that Wikipedia takes up a spot on the first page of every query and guarantees no commercial content.
Thats the perfect business model.... Just look at mozilla. Built on the back of enthusiasts, while a very small handful of people rake in the millions.
Almost makes you wanna switch back to IE.... at least SOMEONE is getting a paycheck.
I'm not sure what everyones search results are, but in my field, Wiki comes up with only one page.
Does anyone here search G, only to find that Wiki just happens to land in EVERY spot, 1-10?
Somehow I doubt it. In the long run, G is supplying their users with a relevant SERP. And that particular serp position, whether it be #1 or #7, has no baring on your problems.
The point of having a site, and complaining about your placement, tells me that you're worried about the conversions. If so, and even if wiki were #1 and you were #2, then chances are that the people NOT ready to buy/convert, still WOULDN'T convert if you happen to be beating Wiki in the first place.
Sure, you might pick up a straggler or two, but it just doesn't seem to be worth stressing about the overall dollars lost.
The competition you REALLY need to focus on, is everyone else in the top 10, and if wiki is #1 and you're #2, then you shouldn't have anything to complain about. The people ready to buy/convert can't do it from Wiki.....
By a stub article I mean one that has the following line at the base:
"This XYZ article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it."
Just curious why wikipedia "stub" articles rank well. I understand why a wikipedia page that actually has content may rank well, but I don't understand why one that doesn't does. Is it just the internal linking that wiki does?
This is where I think that caveman is right on...
Perhaps the authority dial for mega sites is dialed a wee bit too high? Maybe?
I don't agree that's the reason the example cited in the original post is ranking, though.
As for the stubs ranking, yes, that's ridiculous. Way back, after Google's infamous Florida update, large authority sites were ranking for merely mentioning services they stated they did not offer. This is somewhat similar. The internal linking and the titling help the stubs rank as well.
The internal linking and the titling help the stubs rank as well.
A PS to this... I can't help mentioning that this excessive influence of internal linking is, IMO, one of the reasons Google went in the direction of Florida and Local Rank... so you have to be careful what you wish for. What will affect Wikipedia will affect a bunch of other sites.
But its just half (or whatever percentage) of the picture. What Google still has is basically 2% understanding of niche/theme/topic. Google is all about generic authority because it makes almost no effort to discern niche authority.
The thing to complain about is not that Wikipedia ranks well, but rather that the algo is so immature that essentially 100 links from a jewelry site that say "automibile history" have more weight than 50 links from an authoritative automotive review site saying "automobile history".
Back in 2002 Google understood theme a bit by essentially starting its crawl from Dmoz. These days it just reads link text, and doesn't consider the source, which leads to rankings of slender pages on overall decent sites, with wikipedia being the most obvious example.
A single wikipedia page should likely be #1 for a query for a 13th Century king, but its a ludicrous result for some of the most popular search terms.
You just have to scroll down the Wiki page to where the References and See also sections are
That's only true if the page actually has any references on it. Most don't. I wonder that the ratio of stubs is to good complete articles on Wikipedia. And even a lot of pages that aren't marked as stubs don't have references.
You just have to scroll down the Wiki page to where the References and See also sections areThat's only true if the page actually has any references on it.
Again, the nofollows on the Reference links also distort the web ecology... possibly by keeping all the PageRank on the Wikipedia site, and definitely by not giving the References the link boosts that many of them deserve. Distorts the whole picture.
References the link boosts that many of them deserve. Distorts the whole picture.
Yes it does. And, I think if we look back at when the Wiki started to really dominate the results was shortly after they implemented the nofollow attribute. Coincidental?
p/g
I wish G was more thoughtful and proactive. It only seems capable of putting out fires, reacting to one form of spam after another, and then after a long time
The patents that have been discussed in this forum suggest that Google is going well beyond "putting out fires." And, as a practical matter, it makes more sense for Google to develop "scalable solutions"--and to see how they work in an organic search envirnoment--than to play whack-a-mole with every spammer who comes along.
Of course, scalable solutions take time to refine, and in some cases there may be collateral damage. There's obviously a "sweet spot" between whacking everything that looks mildly suspicious (thereby causing widespread collateral damage) and letting the inmates run the asylum. Locating and maintaining that sweet spot in a constantly changing Web environment can't be easy--especially when the bad guys are constantly working to protect their own interests.
and then after a long time
That's the way all multinational, multibillion worth companies go. Expect 150 meetings to decide when and how to open a freezer ...
