Italian Wikipedia temporarily gone

[seoholic]

"Dear reader,
at this time, the Italian language Wikipedia may be no longer able to continue providing the service that over the years was useful to you, and that you expected to have right now. As things stand, the page you want still exists and is only hidden, but the risk is that soon we will be forced to actually delete it."

Please discuss the politics somewhere else.

My point is, that this is a completely irrelevant search result and google.it still ranks wikipedia.it for high volume search terms e.g. "Berlusconi".

Does it even matter which content Wikipedia shows? Can we learn something from it? Is anybody watching the italian SERPs?

Your opinion?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Wikipedia.it traffic is down a good deal.

I don't watch the Italian serps but this sounds like a warning shot from Wikipedia to google. Google has a VERY real issue on their hands in which GOOD CONTENT may disappear from the internet as a DIRECT result of their incessant tinkering and extreme downgrading without an obvious cause. Perhaps 500+ changes a year isn't a sign of innovation but a sign that they got it wrong 499 times?

All I know is that it's not only Wikipedia considering either blocking Google or removing content in bulk. Will Google wake up in time?

[edited by: Sgt_Kickaxe at 3:27 pm (utc) on Oct 5, 2011]

[rlange]

seoholic wrote:
My point is, that this is a completely irrelevant search result and google.it still ranks wikipedia.it for high volume search terms e.g. "Berlusconi".

Understandable. This all just happened today (or yesterday), apparently. [EDIT]: Wait... I don't think I understand what your complaint is. Is that specific message coming up for searches for "Berlusconi", or just the Italian Wikipedia site in general? [EDIT #2]: I see. They display it for all articles on the Italian Wikipedia. My original comment still applies, then. This only happened recently.

Sgt_Kickaxe wrote:
I don't watch the Italian serps but this sounds like a warning shot from Wikipedia to google.

Good lord, man. Google Derangement Syndrome. This has nothing to do with Google. The above is in response to legislation being debated in Italy. Here's the complete message: [it.wikipedia.org...]

--
Ryan

[edited by: rlange at 3:38 pm (utc) on Oct 5, 2011]

[HuskyPup]

Ok, my Italian is not as good as it used to be:

[it.wikipedia.org...]

rischiano di essere fortemente compromessi dal comma 29 del cosiddetto DDL intercettazioni.

I'll re-read this however this is an Italian Parliament legal thing...let me get my grey cells around it.

[Leosghost]

Sgt ..I suggest you try the berlusconi search and read the English translation of the page presented ..nothing to do with google ..nor traffic numbers..every thing to do with berlusconi and his wish to silence critics

English translation
[it.wikipedia.org...]

just realised Ryan already posted it ( sorry R ;-) ..couldn't tell from the link that shows here..

Having spent 10 minutes testing ..all searches on Italian wikipedia are being redirected today to this page..

Google and any other search engine cannot be expected to "adjust" it's SERPS to allow for such an occurence ..and is IMO acting in everyones interest if by leaving serps pointing to Italian wikipedia this brings berlusconi's attempted censorship to light.

[edited by: Leosghost at 3:48 pm (utc) on Oct 5, 2011]

[HuskyPup]

Doh...just noticed there is a translation! Me? I'm just not up to speed:-)

[HuskyPup]

This is the important paragraph to which they are referring:

This proposal, which the Italian Parliament is currently debating, provides, among other things, a requirement to all websites to publish, within 48 hours of the request and without any comment, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image.

Unfortunately, the law does not require an evaluation of the claim by an impartial third judge - the opinion of the person allegedly injured is all that is required, in order to impose such correction to any website.

[rlange]

I wrote:
Understandable. This all just happened today (or yesterday), apparently.

Actually, this could be an "issue" for as long as the notice is in place. They seem to be using JavaScript to redirect to the notice. The actual content is still there, but hidden using CSS (display: none). If Google ignores the JavaScript-triggered redirect I suspect the Italian Wikipedia pages will eventually fall. If Google, for some reason, actually indexes the hidden content, then maybe not...

But the point is, it's probably too soon to be complaining about the redirected page being an irrelevant result and blaming Google.

--
Ryan

[Alex_TJ]

We don't compete with Wikipedia in the Italian serps, but now that things are back to normal has anyone seen any detrimental effects or otherwise with regards to Wikipedia's ranking in g.it?
It would be interesting to see if the traffic changes or on-page changes lead to any ranking changes.