Is it possible to beat Wikipedia for Position #1?

[karkadan]

Hello,

I've been runnnig my site for different keywords. My site is in Spanish.

For a couple of years, I had my pages at position #1. My pages have good titles, good h1, good inlinks, etc.

Since my site lost its PR (from 5 to 3) at Nov, some of my pages lost its rank to position #2 or 3.

I worked it out, so now I'm #2, but the wikipedia pages (which were #2 always) has now the first place.

In these days, one specifically keyword that I had for 4 years as #1, is glitching from position #1 to position #2. Another wikipedia page is taking me down.

So, is there a way to get or maintain position #1? I dont want to apply an strategy that will hurt my rankings.

[shanedj]

It is really rare that a wikipedia page gets outranked by anything, *but* in this case my site is number 1

Suppose it will depend on the competition for that wiki page...

[edited by: engine at 2:46 pm (utc) on May 8, 2009]
[edit reason] No specifics, thanks. See Charter [/edit]

[skweb]

I am not sure being #1 is so important. A large number of visitors actually visit several links to fully understand what they are researching.

[signor_john]

Yes, it's possible to rank higher than Wikipedia for some terms, but I'm not sure that it matters. Not every searcher is looking for a Wikipedia article. The searcher who searches on "widget pastry" while looking for a widget-pastry recipe or a widget-pastry shop is likely to either (a) skip down past the Wikipedia result on the SERP or (b) hit the browser's back button and try the next result if he has clicked through to a Wikipedia article on the history, etymology, and regional variations of widget pastries.

[tangor]

The wiki up front gets the lion share. How to top that is the question. Not sure you can. Seems to be a deal between google and wiki. Wish it otherwise, but that's what I see (and my clients as well... all begging me to get them above wiki).

[Rosalind]

Seems to be a deal between google and wiki.

Not really, it does seem to dominate the other engines as well.

I suspect it will get harder to beat it in all niches, because it's the top choice of lazy linkers. And by that I mean people find it easier to link to Wikipedia than to the original source of information. Rather than digging deeper into a topic most people will link to the first result they find, so long as it doesn't look like complete rubbish.

[johnnie]

Contact sites linking to wiki and ask them to link to you. Show them your page provides more value than wiki and who knows, they might just do it :)

[nealrodriguez]

Seems to be a deal between google and wiki. Wish it otherwise, but that's what I see (and my clients as well... all begging me to get them above wiki).

it's walking up a slippery slope, but not impossible. i have seen it done; i doubt it's a hand shake under the table. just think of all the sites that link to wikipedia in order to cite a definition with the keyword, which the wikipedia article defines, as anchor text.

according to yahoo! over 6 million pages link to wikipedia:
[siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com...]

but if you can't beat them join them; write some encyclopedic pages of your own:

what wikipedia teaches
[webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: tedster at 3:11 am (utc) on May 9, 2009]
[edit reason] clarify link [/edit]

[fishfinger]

The wiki up front gets the lion share

...but as they don't provide services or carry ads, they're not going to be the end point for anything other than 'information' searches.

When looking for services/products, and many other types of searches, I *never* click the Wiki listings.

Good starting point for someone looking for an introduction to something sure, but not the be all and end all of search.

[karkadan]

In my language, it affects: most surfers are lazy. Interesting answers, by the way.

[tednash]

depends on what you are willing to do....

the is no DEAL between google and wiki......

the majority of Wiki pages rank well become they have very strong internal links from other pages within the Wikipedia domain.

so in theory if you went to these other pages on Wiki and found that some of the links were not relevant, then you would have cause to remove them as a community editor

thats about the way.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Quality Backlinks might be the answer to outrank Wiki, as nealrodriguez said, most of the people link to the source (wiki) in return of the content they use on their websites under CCL

[idolw]

Many webmasters link to Wiki because it is not a money maker, i.e. is not their competition.
Most people do not want to feed their own competition.

[Timetraveler]

Signor hit it on the head if you ask me.

Also, I've has success in ranking above Wikipedia articles but they are KID domains. Heck if all else fails at least try and get an external (but nofollowed) link from the W. article! Might as well get some traffic off it as it will probably be ranking for long tail terms as well and get more traffic than your page might.

[thekohser]

My website is occasionally able to outrank Wikipedia on relatively obscure article titles. But, as others have pointed out, try it on "inflation" or "kidney", and good luck with that. I'm thinking 80% of SEOs are deluding themselves. Why doesn't SEO Roundtable or Webmaster World take the next step -- select a batch of asteroids that rank #1 in Google from Wikipedia (e.g., 588 Achilles), put 'em in a hat, and let the SEOs each take ownership of an asteroid and do battle to get "their" asteroid page to #1 on Google. They could each pitch in $50, and winner takes all.

[edited by: coopster at 3:29 pm (utc) on May 30, 2009]
[edit reason] no personal urls please TOS [webmasterworld.com] [/edit]