Wikipedia: the new SEO on the brand block

Submitted by John Andrews on Mon, 2006-09-11 22:49

Search marketing

Somebody has noticed the circumstance of Wikipedia as it pertains to brand marketing online, and SEO:

11 of the top 20 advertised brands in the US had a wikipedia page showing on Page 1 of the Google SERP for it's brand.
Many of those Wikipedia articles included neutral or unsavory information about the brand.
Most of the rest of the Top 100 Brands had their wikipedia pages on the first 2 pages of the Google SERP for their brand

It sounds as if the wikipedia is the new DMOZ, and poised to compete directly with "traditional SEO" when it comes to brand SEO.

I suggest we continue to let those other webmaster sites talk about DMOZ, while we at ThreadWatch recognize wikipedia for the SEO spam that it either is or will become.

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/09/study_wikipedia.html

Comments

Damn it John.

Submitted by SlyOldDog on Tue, 2006-09-12 03:04.

And we just listed our site on one of those pages a couple days ago :)

Nothing lasts long on the net.

The most annoying thing is

Submitted by foo on Tue, 2006-09-12 03:59.

The most annoying thing is when you have a very strong site in your niche, you create a neutral wikipedia page for yourself, then some f'idiot comes along and deletes it for being spam or not notable.

Also see: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2006/04/15/on_being_notabl.html

Danah's blog post was spot

Submitted by seobook on Tue, 2006-09-12 05:07.

Danah's blog post was spot on

Then there are also disconcerting framing issues - apparently my notability rests on my presence in mainstream media and i'm a cultural anthropologist because it said so on TV. Good grief.

Why does mainstream media play such a significant role in the Wikipedia validation process? We know damn well that mainstream media is often wrong. ...

The media has decided that i'm an expert because of my knowledge in a specific domain; Wikipedia has decided that i'm notable because i'm on TV. Why is Wikipedia not using transitivity and saying that i'm notable because of my knowledge in a specific domain? Why does it matter more that i'm on TV than why i'm on TV?

truth we don't need no steekin' truth

Submitted by graywolf on Tue, 2006-09-12 05:16.

from the horses mouth so to speak:

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.

Aggregation of content, not publishing

Submitted by jehochman on Tue, 2006-09-12 07:56.

Wikipedia is a place to gather info that is otherwise diffuse. I don't think it relies on Mainstream Media. When ideas are published anywhere, even in a forum or conference proceedings, if there is some sort of editorial control, those ideas can be added to Wikipedia and the source referenced.

Wikipedia doesn't guarantee truth. There are references so users can trace back to the source and decide for themselves what's true.

Stake out your turf

Submitted by jaiball on Tue, 2006-09-12 18:48.

then some f'idiot comes along and deletes it for being spam or not notable.

Then you go right back and change it. Its interesting to see the history of pages with competitive terms.

The distortions are

Submitted by John Andrews on Wed, 2006-09-13 00:03.

The distortions are sometimes quite dramatic.

Look at the Wikipedia entry for Steve Irwin at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Irwin. The guy died during the height of wikipedia editorial ferver, so his death gets as much coverage as his entire life. Geesh. Jacques Cousteau got a single line for his death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques-Yves_Cousteau.

Even Abe Lincoln's death by assasination got less coverage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_lincoln

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