Loss of multiple Wikipedia links and trustrank

[ichthyous]

I noticed that Wikipedia has done a sweep of external links on the 17th of March and I lost 10 long-standing links to various internal pages of my website. It was the same editor in every case, and he seems to have mysteriously left other links to websites which could be construed as commercial sites since they are selling advertising or products. I doubt there is much I can do about it, but I am wondering what the effect of losing so many old links (6-24 months old) will have on my Google ranking. In every case the linked pages seem to have benefited greatly from the Wiki link. I understand that the nofollow tags blocked any PR from being passed, but what about the overall effect on trustrank from those 10 Wiki links? Does anyone have direct experience with this recently? Thanks!

[dickbaker]

I just wanted to update my previous post.

I had links in Wikipedia to pages on my site for about four years, until they were removed just months ago.

There's a competitor site whose link profile shows hundreds or even thousands of links from Wikipedia if I do a Google link: search.

Previously this competitor site didn't rank on the first page for any terms I target. Now I find that I'm outranked by this site for many terms.

I went back to Wikipedia and added my links again, only to have them removed immediately by an editor who labled them as spam. I contacted the editor to question why my links were removed, but the links to the competitor site were allowed to stay.

His explanation was that the competitor site was informational, while mine was clearly commercial. Horsefeathers. The competitor site is plastered with banner ads, as well as affiliate text links in the "content" pages. Further, my site offers useful information as well, and a minimum of advertising by comparison.

I find it hard to believe that a Russian site with tons of links from Wikipedia can now outrank many established US sites that don't have links from Wikipedia, and to believe that those Wiki links don't count.

I also wonder how the owner of the competitor site has obviously ingratiated himself with the editors at Wiki.

[nuevojefe]

ichthyous,

Out of curiosity what percent of your referred traffic came from those links?

Also, out of your backlinks were there (many) other backlinks that you would consider as authoritative as those from wikipedia

[ichthyous]

Nuevojefe,

The wiki links were all at the top of the list for referrers to my site. That traffic vanished all at one time when one editor purged all the links to my site on all wiki pages that had accumulated for years. Once those links were gone a few weeks later I saw a big sudden drop in Yahoo SE traffic down to half. After about 6 weeks I noticed Google traffic very slowly going down. I assumed it was seasonal, but the decline has been slow and steady since the first week of May...like a deflating balloon. I gained 4-5 very good IBLs to my site over the same time period so perhaps the drop would have been bigger.

[CainIV]

Matt has said the links are ignored. Believe him or don't, but it is just aimless speculation to be concerned about the effects of something where such a clear statement has been made.

Lots of clear statements have been made by Matt - who only recently mentioned that Google bowling is clearly not an issue for 99% of businesses online.

I, myself am interested to see the results of this, and whether the website does indeed lose positions.

[RedCardinal]

Six weeks after all of my wiki links were removed I noticed the beginning of a downward trend in traffic.

Did it affect your rankings? While you might see correlation between these two events, are you sure about causality? If the loss of the links did indeed hurt you (from a Google perspective) then your rankings must also have taken a hit?

[ichthyous]

Yes, my rankings did take a hit, but it's been such a gradual decline that it wasn't immediately noticeable. Whenever my site has had significant loss of traffic the only cause that I can see was loss of links. The only thing that made the traffic return was garnering new IBLs. For my site it's been as simple as that.

[hermosa]

Wikipedia is really not worth the bother. I have no idea why Google places such high value on it. It's user generated content and I have found it to be inaccurate. Some of the most dominant editors for certain topics edit out links and content that is highy valuable. On what basis? Seems like their own subjective whims. I have tried on and off to add some content to Wikipedia but it always ends up in a pissing match with some ill-informed individual with a huge ego and little knowledge. I gave up some time ago. It was way too much of a hassle. Now when I want to post something about a topic of interest, I just add it to my blog.