Bing "Wikiepdia" button

Not good for anyoe competing with Wikipedia

[graeme_p]

The previous discussion I found on this topic only discussed the fact that Bing hosted copies of Wikipedia content.

What I did not see in the previous thread is that certain searches return a highlighted "reference articles on ....." link that searches returns only (Bing hosted) Wikipedia and Freebase results.

This is going to keep people on the Bing site for a huge category of searches.

For people who accuse Google of wanting to keep people on their own sites: so far, they have done nothing like this, and if that is your concern hope wish for Bing to fail.

[martinibuster]

Wikipedia is not an authoritative source of information. Wikipedia is an aggregator of authoritative information mixed with non-authoritative data.

I admit to a conflict of interest in this issue, but I think it's a bad move to give such an important role to an aggregator of information. The more useful approach for Bing (or Google) would be to identify the authoritative sources of information, the sources Wikipedia editors rewrote from. It would be more useful to indentify the thousands of authoritative sources, the original sources from which wikipedians originally sourced and rewrote their content, then give Bing users the option of searching those sites.

In my opinion, defaulting to Wikpedia is in-the-box thinking.

[tangor]

We can't discuss "certain searches" under TOS so I'll grant you might see something I haven't seen... but as far as I can tell Bing is no more egregious with Wikipedia as Google or Yahoo. Not sure what "button" you are seeing. Could it be local for your service?

[graeme_p]

I used Bing US, so it is not local to me.

"Button" was a bad description. If you do certain searches, when you get the results you see the words "all results" on an orange background. Under that, there is a link/tab that says "Reference articles on [your search terms]"

Once you click on that:

1) The results are filtered to just Bing hosted Wikipedia and Freebase
2) If you edit the search terms you get another "reference" search: i.e. Bing hosted Wikipedia and Freebase only.

I tried a place name, a chemical name and a business/finance term and it worked happened for all of them (I hope thats non-specific enough for the forum rules).

The difference is:
1) Google just ranks Wikipedia highly

Bing
1) Ranks Wikipedia highly
2) Hosts copies of Wikipedia itself
3) Gives you a prominent, attractively labeled search option, that filters your search to just Bing hosted Wikipedia.

Looking at the other options that can appear, Bing seems to be the search engine most determined to keep you on their site.

[mack]

Wikipedia is not an authoritative source of information. Wikipedia is an aggregator of authoritative information mixed with non-authoritative data.

Totaly agree, but many people take Wikipedia as fact.

Mack.

[graeme_p]

I got a great example of Wikipedia credulity in a discussion on Slashdot recently. Someone cited a Wikipedia article as proof, despite the fact that there was a verifiability (lack of) footnote about the very point they were trying to proove.

Mind you it was a discussion about religion, which is not a subject you can have a sensible discussion about on Slashdot anyway.

Bing endorsing Wikipedia articles are reference content will only make Wikipedia more credible- if people are sufficiently sceptical (very unlikely), it may make Bing less credible.

[tangor]

Made me look. Yes, it is there. And guess what? It puts all the wikipedia in one place (research) while providing a top page for wikipedia and all the rest is out of sight for the serps. I like that! Thanks for the heads up. One more thing I can shout out to all my friends and clients. Better serps, less wikipedia!

[graeme_p]

It puts all the wikipedia in one place (research) while providing a top page for wikipedia and all the rest is out of sight for the serps.

As far as I can see this is in addition to ranking wikipedia highly in the SERPS. For the searches I have tried to confirm its across topics, Wikipedia is usually in first or second place for all of the. I do not see how that is "less Wikipedia" - is it that Bing ranks Wikipedia lower for particular topics/niches you tried?

[tangor]

Everything I've searched gets (at best) on Wikipedia in the serps above the fold. However, the results button RESEARCH unveils a few other Wikipedia which rank much lower in the serps.

For the most part I like Bing better than Google...less noise. Results are VERY SIMILAR in both so it's almost a coin toss which is "better". But the lack of noise on Bing is what intrigues me.

[graeme_p]

I did several searches on a very wide range of topics (business, chemistry, health, history, places an a person)and got:

Wikipedia position in Bing serps: 2,1,1,3,1,2,1(with huge logo),1
in Google serps: 1,1,1,2,1,2,1,1

I am counting the Google maps link on the serps, because people will percieve in as a search result.

So Bing ranks Wikipedia a little lower, and for encyclopaedia type searches the "reference" button can be very prominent (for others it gets lost in the long list of options). It is not quite as bad as I first thought, but still, I think bad news for reference type sites).

@tangor, I have stickied you actual searches (cannot post here because obviously)

[tangor]

I'll take a look at the sticky, but even before that I'll merely remark that dang few of us are reference level "wiki". I remain, as stated earlier, happy with the lean(er) Bing results...

[graeme_p]

Search terms tangor stickied me I get:

Google: 1,1,1,3,1,1,1
Wikipedia: 1,1,1,2,1,1,1

I am not logged into either, so no personalised results, using Google.com and Bing on the US settings. Bing does push two results down if you count Bing returning images and videos at the top (I would say that people looking for reference info are likely to skip the single line of image and video thumbnails)

It looks as though tangor and I are seeing different results for some reason.

Interestingly, google.co.uk returns is the same, except that the BBC comes top for one term. It makes me quite proud of beating Wikipedia even for the comparatively small handful of reference terms for which I am at the top of the UK SERPS (and even fewer in the US/other English speaking countries).

[tangor]

Could very well be seeing different results. I use Bing and Google very specifically... and I don't have a lot of search requirements. Might be just the difference in expectations of results. As it is, I exclusively use Bing these days and only go to google if there are NO results in Bing.