Sure, Wikipedia's done away with live external links, limiting some of their value to SEOs (and making me a much happier person), but there's still an enormous amount of reputation management and links-for-traffic opportunities. Luckily, I've got a not-so-secret formula for how to add content and make changes to Wikipedia ethically and legitimately. But, first things first, let's review a few of Wikipedia's most important rules (I'm going to excerpt large chunks, as I believe these are valuable for would-be editors to understand):
A person is notable if he or she has been the subject of secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent,6 and independent of the subject. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial, or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to add content. Ultimately, and most importantly, all content must be attributable.
Notability for Organizations and Companies:
A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, independent of the subject and independent of each other. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to add content. Ultimately, and most importantly, all content must be attributable.
The "secondary sources" in the criterion include reliable published works in all forms, such as (for examples) newspaper articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations1 except for the following:
- Press releases; autobiographies; advertising for the company, corporation, organization, or group; and other works where the company, corporation, organization, or group talks about itself — whether published by the company, corporation, organization, or group itself, or re-printed by other people.
- Works carrying merely trivial coverage; such as (for examples) newspaper articles that simply report meeting times or extended shopping hours, or the publications of telephone numbers, addresses, and directions in business directories.
In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a clear conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred from the tone of the edit and the proximity of the editor to the subject, are strongly discouraged. Of special concern are organizational conflicts of interest.[1] Failure to follow these guidelines may put the editor at serious risk of embarrassing himself or his client.
Wikipedia is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", but if you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:
- editing articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with,
- participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors,
- linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam);
- and you must always:
- avoid breaching relevant policies and guidelines, especially neutral point of view, attribution, and autobiography.
If you have more questions about the editing rules at Wikipedia most likely to apply to an SEO's activities there, I'd also highly recommend reading this Five Minute Introduction to Wikipedia for PR Professionals.
Now, on to my strategies - please note, this is a guide for certain folks - SEO shops, media relations firms, internal PR division, or anyone who wants to have considerable editing power at Wikipedia that can afford to dedicate time to Wikipedia work. If you can't afford that commitment and have serious Wikipedia issues, I'd suggest contacting a social media marketing firm (there's some good ones here):
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Step 1: Create a username profile and robustly, accurately describe yourself on your user page. Always use this when logging in (from home, work, on the road, etc). You'll want every edit you make to be ascribed to your account.
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Step 2: Identify the pages you'd like to edit and use your watchlist to "watch" those pages for changes and updates.
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Step 3: Identify 5-10 stub articles in your industry that need attention. Visit these pages and spend some time improving the quality and quantity of content. Don't promote yourself or anyone else - use Wikipedia's NPOV (Neutral Point of View) rule.
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Step 4: Now that you've shown you're reliable, try making some smaller edits to articles and participating in a few discussions on talk pages on subjects you're knowledgable about - whether personal or professional.
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Step 5: You've got a robust profile at this point (at least robust enough not to be viewed as a spammer). Go back to those pages you identified in stage 2 that you really want to edit and post your changes, respectfully and logically on the talk page. You can even post links to an entire new version of the article in a sandbox if you'd like. Disclose in your piece your relationship to the party - "I work for them, I'm a friend of theirs, I'm the CEO's son, etc." - trust me when I say that the Wikipedians will eventually figure you out, so it pays to be honest and upfront about motivations.
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Step 6: Watch the talk pages and monitor discussion. 7/10 times, in our experience, the page gets changed with no questions asked - even links can be added if they're not too obviously SEO'd or spammy. The rest of the time, you'll need to have a back and forth with the other editors. In these cases, your position will be greatly strengthened by the history of your past edits. No other factor makes for a big reputation rise or fall at Wikipedia than edit history.
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Step 7: In the event that the page you want to create/edit isn't visited by an editor to comment or institute your changes over 7 days, re-post on the talk page indicating that unless there's objection, you'll make the changes yourself.
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Step 8: This is a bit blackhat, but folks have great success with it, so it's worth mentioning. Using the process above and one other time-consuming technique, you can almost ensure you'll get everything you want. Simply create a second account - on a separate IP as a separate person, unaffiliated with the company. To hide your data, you can either go totally fake (name, bio, et al.) or pose as a friend of yours (make sure they know about it and approve). You can set up a proxy IP to log into on your web server or buy a cheap hosting account (as little as $10 a month) and use that. Build up your sock puppet's profile a bit, then have them be the "editor" who comes by and makes the change. Just make sure that "sock editor" has made changes to lots of discussed articles, so you don't stand out.
Why did I post Step 8? Because it's ridiculous for me to hide information when someone will almost certainly figure it out themselves and/or write about it in the comments. We don't use this methodology (in fact, we don't even edit Wikipedia much ourselves, but instead ask contacts). Wikipedia is, in my opinion, not a particularly accurate resource, but an exceptionally prominent one in many SERPs. With generally low relevancy and quality, I admit that I have a hard time feeling guilty about using it to conduct reputation management or even link building, particularly since those additions are often considerable improvement to the existing content.
So, now that I've spilled our WIkipedia-editing secrets, I'd love to hear yours - any strategies you employ, tricks you've seen, problems you've encountered, etc.?
I had a few friends in college recently site Wikipedia and have their papers returned and marked with an inadequite source according to their professors. It makes sense to me that it can't be as jordee said, "the be-all and end-all of research."
Like BudC and a few others, I don't see Wikipedia lasting the test of time. IMO it is having its day in the sun, but will be burned out soon enough. I find it a bit suprising that Google gives Wikipedia such weight in the SERPs. Maybe this is because there is a lack of any other sort of community or site of this type.
There's a line that goes something like a candle which burns twice as bright burns twice as fast. This is my question - is Wikipedia just the latest fad, watiting to be replaced by something more sophisticated and reliable - or is it here to stay. My sense is that the people at Wikipedia themselves are concerned about this question and that is why they have changed their links to no-follow and have all these rules.
Wikipedia has a policy of 'no original research'. This means that it specifically should not be a cited site - students should be referencing the original articles that the information on Wikipedia was retrieved from.
Brilliant observations and Rand(t)s as always. Thank you.
It would be an arduous task to offer this sort of SEO to customers. I think the points make for great strategy regarding ones own site, or the customer willl need to account for extra, long term, resources.
Internet cafes are a great opportunity for a quick coffee and a 'Step 8 edit'.
Rand proves that you can manipulate wikipedia without really being detected -- good sense already tells most of us that community dictating fact is generally a bad principle -- and for some reason Google gives it an incredible amount of weight in search results...
Rock the boat for what its good for today and together we're all going to sink her. And it's no love lost in my opinion. Just like Dmoz in many ways.
re: Wikipedia not being used in colleges: I was a teaching assistant for a very large 100-level college course. The professor required a research paper and prohibited citing Wikipedia—or any other encyclopedia. He didn't say that you couldn't use encyclopediae, but that should never be the be-all and end-all of research.
If an article is edited and sourced well, however, it can certainly lead students and other interested parties to real research materials.
And just to be clear, I'd have to argue that step 8 is more than "a bit" blackhat, since Wikipedia has expressly prohibited sock puppetry for that (and most other) purpose(s).
Jordee - yeah, step 8 does violate their guidelines directly, but it's also virtually impossible to track if done properly. It really depends on how much respect you have for the Wikipedia process and your preferences for the WP's content.
Isn't there another issue of just respecting someone's website rules in general? Whether or not we think Wikipedia is the greatest encyclopedia or not, isn't it worth respecting the fact that they have set up rules to try and make it a real people's encyclopedia?
We need to keep in mind that #8 is expressly stated as BH.
Given that, I would say that most dabbling in the Black Hat Club follow the BHC guidelines:
Likewise, Rand was laying out a method, not necessarily recommending it... of course, that might be covered under Rule #1. hmmmm ;)
I know that Rand wasn't recommending this method. What's more, I believe him when he says that he doesn't practice it. However, in general, I think it's best not to mention rules that one thinks aren't legitimate - even if you are sure that other people will figure it out and/or mention it.
I know that I wouldn't have thought of it if Rand hadn't mentioned it. Furthermore, not everyone reads the comments. In effect, it's giving greater publicitiy to the idea and if one thinks that the idea is problematic, then one shouldn't give it greater publicity.
This is nothing against Rand personally. In fact, one of the reasons that I come back here and regularly read and trust this website is because of the fact that I trust and respect what Rand has to say). Furthermore, I think one of the secrets of his and SEOMOz's success is that they practice the basis of step 1 - which is being open and honest. With that said, I'm not a big fan of the 'You shouldn't practice this (detailed description) at home' type of comments.
All the best,
Moshe
Yeah - I guess.
But if a site I work on/for has written an absolute stormer of a reference piece, that will add to the user experience (and remember, at the moment I work for a company who produce the leading UK B2B magazines for pretty much any industry sector you can think of) then I can't bring myself to get worked up...
Not sure about that... It's a good question - do we respect Google's rules, Yahoo!'s, Digg's? And if we did, would that be "better" for the world overall than if we didn't? Would it make a big impact either way?
I'm also not 100% sure - I think there is a lot of grey area here. I think though, that there is most likely a difference about what one does on a particular website and what one does off of that website.
For instance, Google has certain rules about what is considered legitimate linking policies and what is not considered legitimate linking policies. Of course, when I'm on someone else's website I have no obligation legalally, morally or otherwise to pay any attention to Google's linking policies. I just have to be aware, though, that there may be consequences in terms of what happens to my site on Google's website (i.e., on their webserver).
However, the second that I go onto someone else's website, and start trying to manipulate their website, I think things are a little less clear. Posing as someone else so as to manipulate their site when the owners of that site specifically tell us that that is not allowed on their site doesn't sound 100% legit to me. After all, there are people who spend time and money building these websites. In some ways, it really is virtual real estate - and just like when I enter someone's home or business I should respect the rules of their home or business (even if I don't 100% agree with them, their home/business, those rules, etc.) so too online.
Now, I'm not 100% sure that this distinction applies as clearly and neatly as I've stated - but I think the mere fact that you to add a paragraph explaining why you included step 8 indicates that we all recognize that there is something problematic about it. We are, in a real sense, trying to fool people (real people, who just happen to sit behind a different computer in a different place).
As Identity pointed out (at least, I think this is what he was pointing out), this rule is in direct contradiction to step 1. Step 1 is all about openess, transperancy and honesty. You aren't hiding anything from anyone. True, your ultimate motives are to benefit yourself, but that's also true in many situations in life - when making business deals, when going to College, sometimes when helping other people, etc. You aren't passing yourself off as someone else or trying to do something against their wishes. In fact, you are working in tandem with their wishes, just in such a way that you can also benefit. I have no problem with that in this situation.
It's when we start to actively manipulate someone else's website that I start to wonder.
All the best,
Moshe
Rand: the most authority I got within the Wikipedia community was actually by joining in their spam prevention program :) Doing a fair bit of spam prevention, removing the really ugly stuff, is the best way to make sure people will believe you when you say some content ought to be there. I've been able to save quite a few people's wiki pages because of that...
The wikipedia rules exist for a reason, and that is to perpetuate the founders vision of an impartial non-commercial information resource. I'm not saying this means don't break them, but if you "believe" in the wiki ethos then you probably shouldn't break them. (the argument over whether the vision is sustainable or practical can be had elsewhere)
Personally I'm in favour of Rand posting Step #8 simply because the more people who know about it the more likely its either going to be fixed or the wiki metaphor changes sufficiently so its not a problem anymore.
Wikipedia itself isn't going anywhere, since it matches the magical "good enough" metric that most people are using it for: digging up generally informative data on something they've never heard of. If all of the freshman college students were banned from wikipedia today it wouldn't lessen its primary utility. I think saying that wikipedia is no good because schools won't allow it as a citation is kind of missing the point.
Fixing wikipedia's flawed system would mean a complete break down of wikipedia itself IMO, since its foundation was built on user submitted and edited content. Hence the new competitor Citizendium was created, to combat "that" flawed system by creating some sort of "watch dog" status on certain users.
To my understanding, the "watch dogs" of Citizendium must have a bachelor degree on the topic they look after to ensure their expert status in that specific field. In other words, Citizendium SHOULD be more than just "good enough".
I still think Wikipedia is your friend.
that 'good enough' measure is a very time limited one though. Slashdot used to be good enough... maybe wikipedia will not dissapear completely anytime soon, but I personally think that newspapers will soon give it a run for its money.
The whole Wikipedia concept is fatally flawed. The notion that one can produce an authoritative encyclopedia without any kind of editorial control is patently ridiculous. There is a far greater and more insidious threat to Wikipedia than simple character assassination or falsehood. It can broadly be labelled “infomercial content” (i.e. content that purports to be informative but has a commercial bias). A good example is the entry on Barcelona (Spain). The whole article reads like a tourist brochure and any reference to the city’s pollution problems is swiftly removed by an army of self-appointed censors. There are strong indications that the Barcelona Tourist Board (or its army of acolytes) has effectively hijacked the site. This kind of thing is going to become more prevalent as Wikipedia becomes better known. Basically, there is nothing that can be done to stop this corporate take-over of Wikipedia without editorial control yet such control runs counter to the whole Wiki ethos. The idea that “a community of users” is going to apply some common sense criteria regarding content is a mistaken one. In the case of the Barcelona entry, the influence of Catalan/Spanish speakers on both content and style is all too evident. The locals seem eager to “sell” their city to the wider world and to show off their appalling English. Wikipedia not only lacks the control mechanisms to stop them, it also wilfully fails to recognize it has a serious problem.
Different, semi-related question. Has anyone ever used the mediawiki software on a heavily SEO'd site? I just set up my personal site over the weekend and am really likin it, but I dont think I've seen it used much outside of university research type sites. Also, does anyone have any resources on customizing the look of mediawiki?
Thanks beforehand for any help.
Nicely put - and an exact mirror of my own thoughts on it.
With this guide (which I've already added to a piece of mandatory reading for our marketing & editorial teams) you are, once again, doing my job for me! Thank you.
Creating a wiki commons page with images and then linking through from the main wiki page is a nice way to gain trust and to enhance the wiki world at the same time. However i have found that the editors can be paranoid about confirming ownership of images posted onto wiki commons.
Glad to see people posting about links for quality traffic and rep management instead of purely posting about link value passed to the domain. Thanks Rand. It's important to touch on all the ways to get more conversions and these topics are few and far between lately.
I have been messing with some social media marketing to test the same things.
Rand I was wondering what would be the effects of wiki using the nofollow tags now! My thinking said it would enhance it's rankings a bit more as now there is no link juice going out from it. How would you define it?
Manish Pandey
Wikipedia gains rankings even more? Say it ain't so! I'm really not sure, but I doubt it. Google isn't penalizing folks like Wikipedia for their outlinks, even when they were live - MC said himself that he'd prefer that Wikipedia have live links and sort out a way to nofollow the non-trusted links.
The thing is that for every person that DOES respect Wiki's rules, there is someone out there NOT respecting them. The end result is Prof's telling their students not to use WP. If that's how it is being viewed by the educators right now, its a matter of time before google stops ranking it so highly. (may be a ways off... but it will come, just like dmoz). its just my opinion.
i've been flirting with the idea to start use wikipedia... but i didn't know where to start... so this article will be a "bible" for me... i will come back with feedback about how it works with romanian pages of wiipedia :)
A bit of a side question - if you think that Wikipedia is of generally low quality (and you're not the first person I've heard this from), do you think that there is room for a betterpedia to come in and kind of make it a thing of the past?
I'll explain why I'm asking.
A) I remember seeing a blurb somewhere about some competition for Wikipedia in the works
B) If a new and better version does come around, then all this work on Wikipedia may be for only short term benefit.
C) Perhaps one's efforts could be better spent on topically related, authority sites (if possible)?
Now, obviously there is value also to short term benefits and it's hard to ignore the large traffic volume of Wikipedia, but nonetheless my quality indicator has gone off and I'm just wondering whether or not Wikipedia is a good long-term investment.
All the best,
Moshe
A) Yes, there's a new wikipedia in town. It's called Citizendium.
B) No, it won't be. Wikipedia won't be replaced by anything like itself. It's the one people know and love. And whilst we may find it a bit off base sometimes, actually most of the time it's fine. And the fact that anyone can edit is a powerful motivator for people to get involved. Secondly, you Wiki something when you look it up. You wouldn't Citi it. City is already a word in general usage. Wiki wasn't. Same reason Google works so well.
C) Nopes. Vertical isn't the way to go. Why not just keep all the verticals in one place anyway? It's just easier and less cluttered. Like a portal for information.
I have to side with Pete on this one.
While I won't say that it couldn't be replaced, I agree with the basis of the statement.
For something to come in now and replace Wikipedia, it would have to do two things:
This would be a considerable challenge, especially for anything that is being offered up for free.
But what if something could come along that was accepted as being more authoritative, that you knew was completely accurate and trustworthy?
Unfortunately, the sad truth is, I don't believe the masses really care all that much. I think most people are content in the information they receive as it is and don't see much issue in the chance that the information they read may not be entirely accurate.
What would be interesting to know is whether people really don't care, or whether they believe that they would some how "know" if what they read was inaccurate, as if the only inaccuracies would be limited to the clearly obvious.
I agree that it's hard to imagine something replacing Wikipedia. However, the moment that a serious flaw exists in a product or service then there is room for someone to come in and take over. I'm not saying that that is gonig to happen, but I think it's worth considering.
Of course, perhaps accuracy is not a major flaw, as you mentioned - at least not as far as the masses are concerned.
All the best,
Moshe
I think that the main point here is that most of us would find it hard it see how it's going to be replaced or upstaged.
But then people said the same thing about a whole host of products that have at one point or another had huge market domination.
It's not a question of "Is it a major flaw". Windows has major flaws. It still dominates the market. The question is, are those flaws annoying and damaging enough that it'll lose market share. At the moment, I'd have to say no. It's accurate enough, and detailed enough, and big enough that people don't care.
"What would be interesting to know is whether people really don't care, or whether they believe that they would some how "know" if what they read was inaccurate, as if the only inaccuracies would be limited to the clearly obvious."
Both. Like the adage says, "95% of people believe they're above average drivers..."
I think he says Wikipedia is of low quality because people are not looking for a "what is acne" article when they type in "acne" in the search engines. If they didn't know what acne is they wouldn't be typing it in the first place. They are mostly looking for a solution to a problem they know a name for(acne).
The wikipedia article (which figures in the 1st or 2nd place for the term) is of little or no use to the person searching for a cure for acne.
Raja Sekharan
Thank you for this post Rand. I have wondered about this and hadn't followed it up.
Could you please attach a timeline to these rules/steps? For how long should you be at one step before you feel comfortable moving to the next step?
Timeline - I'm realyl not sure. It's not a "wait one day, wait 2 weeks" but more a question of being natural and doing it as your schedule allows. I don't think it should take more than 3 weeks to build up a relatively robust profile, though.