Google has a list of "notable alumni" listed for educational institutions

[MikeRyan]

I'm trying to figure out where Google is drawing its list of "notable alumni" from. In our case, it's not inaccurate, but the ordering of them is pretty odd.

It displays in the right hand column, under the blurb drawn from wikipedia about the school. Does anyone know where that content is coming from.

[aristotle]

If I were to do that on one of my sites, I would give credit to the source of the information, with either a link or a reference to a publication. I don't know why Google wouldn't do the same.

[netmeg]

I dunno; I don't see it for UMICH.

[rustybrick]

It comes from Wikipedia, they have "notable alumni" landing pages for universities.

[MikeRyan]

Thanks.

It links to Wikipedia (and the images link to wherever they were found), but the alumni displayed don't match up with Wikipedia's "notable alumni" (which can be changed by the institution). My working theory is that it takes the notable bios on Wikipedia which have been flagged as affiliated with the given institution, and displays the ones that have the most hits (leaving the list beyond our control).

I'm not sure why it's not there for all .edu's - I was looking at Ivies and around New England, where it seems to be pretty common.

[lucy24]

It's really backward, isn't it? I mean, who cares who graduated from Harvard. It's Harvard. What's useful to know is if a surprising lot of well-known people turn out to be alumni of Southwest Arkansas Agricultural & Mechanical College.

[rustybrick]

Alumni information does matter to many people. School pride.