Is there any value in trying to add a page to wikipedia
-
Hi Mozzers,
My manager has asked me this question and I'm not quite sure how to answer it.
"Is there any value in trying to add a page about our company to wikipedia"
I would have thought it's very difficult to get a page to stick in wikipedia if it's about a company that isn't huge (like Apple or Google). Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Personally I think it's potentially quite risky and unlikely to bring much traffic (because I can't imagine anyone would visit a page on wiki about my company - not that my company isn't great, because it is, it's just not HUGE or global...) I think a wiki page could be a bit spammy!
Would welcome your input, and I am happy to be proven wrong!
Thanks,
Amelia
-
Thank you Mark, I think you've made some excellent points here.
-
I will also note that we have a few Wikipedia links (we're a wine club and have an education section about obscure grapes) and while those are no-follow, we've gained a few do-follow links from people using the information directly from Wikipedia.
Personally, I'd guess that a company specific entry would be valuable, like any link on a site as popular as Wikipedia, even if the positive aspects are second hand.
-
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion. I really appreciate everyone's input.
We'll put this in our 'ideas box' because it seems it needs a lot of thought to get right. I'll come back and let you know how we get on and what we decide to do (if we do anything at all that is).
-
If you get your page to stay, you may have a tricky time making it accurate. We've battled with the SEOmoz/Moz Wikipedia pages. Despite extensive notes in the Talk page from Rand, there are still a ton of inaccuracies in the page (last time I looked).
-
You can add a link to the website in external links, but as it's no followed it won't pass any link juice anyway.
The whole point of a wiki page is to give customers more information about a brand and will help to build your brand presence. I've previously had trouble with Wiki trying to get a listing as there was too much bias and not enough references.
-
Good Morning!
Wikipedia is a strange beast. It ranks incredibly well in Google because it is full of expertise, authority, and is very trustworthy. When writing for Wiki the most important question to ask is how are you going to make sure it stays there.
Wikipedia was built on the crowd sourcing premise. At first anybody could add content, and anybody could modify content. This is why many Universities were/are hesitant to accept Wikipedia as a reference in research. As time progressed, in an attempt to keep things more accurate, wikipedia started giving members more power, and gave them the voluntary job of monitoring sections. For example my brother earned a PhD in linguistics, he voluntarily acted as one of the moderators for anything that was posted in the linguistics section of Wikipedia. He would read everything, spell check, proof, and most important verify, verify, verify.
As a moderator he would look for 3 things:
- Validity- Is this information true?
- Benefit- Does this information progress the body of knowledge?
- Spam- Is this someone just trying to get a link?
The last one didn't happen as often. As much as he loved it, linguistics isn't exactly the hottest subject in the Wikipedia library, but none the less people would add content that on the surface appeared to be beneficial, but was actually superficial and just trying to get a link.
Every subject has a moderator. Everything is moderated now. That being said, the Wikipedia page for the "Olympics" is looked at much more closely than the Wikipedia page for "plastic infused rubber flux capacitor pencils"... A link from the Olympics Wikipedia page will be much more difficult to get, but potentially MUCH more valuable.
Wikipedia links are great, but they can be removed very easily if you are not careful. Find something special about your company to mention. Maybe some big mortgage/commercial trust laws that were passed that you participated in. Some sort of event that received coverage. Something about your founder/ceo. I personally think creating a link simply because your website is informative isn't enough to keep the link there. It might, who knows, but if you can find something else, something that had more of an impact, I would try and go with that. Go big, find something that really had an impact, and put that on wikipedia. If that doesn't work, you can always go smaller.
I also really like PixelByPixel's idea, veryyyyyyyyyy clever!
Hope that helps!
Edit In response to what Darren said (his post went up when I was typing) like PixelPixel said, all Wikipedia links are now NOFOLLOW. So there isn't really a link benefit from doing it. However, seeing as how every category is competing with Wikipedia for placement, might as well use it to your advantage.
Edit I just realized that 6 people posted while I was typing... geeze you are all fast!
-
For link juice I would say there is little worth if others are not linking to the wiki page directly. As a casing point I looked up a local company to me, LUSH are a cosmetics firm who are pretty global and have been in the news fairly regularly. Their website is DA 59 and PA from the home page 66. Looking up the wikipage it is only a PA 1, therefore will make little impact on their rankings as far as I understand things. Still, no to say it never will in the future as it is a authoritative document and wouldn't be considered as spammy.
-
Thank you.
I have tried (in my more spammier days) to get a large (second largest in the UK) double glazing company in wikipedia, and it got taken down. I think this largely because the company in question completely changed my factual copy with salesy bs that should not be on wiki. I think wiki did the right thing taking it off (though I argued against that at the time because it was my job to do so).
-
Hi,
It's definitely worthwhile having a brand page on Wikipedia. Links are no followed and it won't massively increase your traffic but it will help to build your brand and if someone searches for your brand it will more than likely also show on the 1st page.
The Google Knowledge graph also uses information from Wikipedia, so if you aspire to have the knowledge graph show in results for your brand, you will first need a wiki page.
It isn't straight forward getting your brand on Wikipedia though as submissions need to be unbiased and have authoritative citations and references to back them up or Wiki won't publish the page.
Kind Regards
-
From a traffic perspective, it is really worthwhile doing. We listed a couple of our official European sites on relevant wiki pages and it really brought in a lot of relevant, engaged traffic. SEO-aside, if you have a legitimate reason to maintain some sort of presence on Wikipedia, it's worth it for the reach and potential traffic.
Edit: Fixed terrible grammar.
-
Thank you, good points...
I'll have to have a think because we probably do have legitimate reasons for being referenced in wiki (our sites are very informative).
Thanks for the tip.
-
One sneaky thing you can do is find a niche write about it and link to it e.g.
You company sells office supplies,
write something amazing and useful on office supplies e.g. a history of office supplies.
you can sometimes get a resource link this way on an article that already exists etc.
obviously this is leaning towards the spammier tactics and the links are still no-follow but if you feel it to be beneficial can be handy trick... but shhh its a secret!
Hope that's helpful.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Page optimised and SEO ranking
Hi SEO is new to myself and I'm still trying to get my head round it. My friend and myself run a DJ company in our spare time but we are desperately trying to rank higher to increase our visibility. we have worked hard on our page optimisation and scoring high 90's, we'd love to invest in someone to do it, but simply dont have that kinda cash at the moment. I'm aware that some pages need meta description and alt image text, which is what I'm now working on, but even other sites with lower percentage are ranking higher. is this due to recent changes and google not ranking our pages? Will our ranking improve over time and how long should it be before we see any changes.
Branding | | Bluice0 -
In 2016, should all businesses have a Facebook page?
Even a couple of years ago, I would have told people that they don't _need _a Facebook page for their business if they don't plan on posting regularly and don't expect many Likes. In 2016, has this changed? Is it weird now for a business not to have a Facebook page, even if it's not particularly active? Is it just widely expected now for every business to have a Facebook page? Even if it's just used for brand awareness/visibility or as a popular directory listing simply to occupy more results on the first page for a branded search?
Branding | | Ria_2 -
Should the Facebook page be just the brand name or also include keywords?
Hi. Do you recommend that a company's Facebook Page be just the Brand Name, or should it include some keywords in the title?
Branding | | JonsonSwartz0 -
How to Merge Existing Google Local and Google Business pages?
Hey everyone, I'm getting a wee bit frustrated. I have looked at every blog post I can about merging Google Local and Google Business Pages and I can't figure it out. I already have a verified Google Local page here https://plus.google.com/107404063103285095864/about?gl=CA&hl=en-CA and a Google Business Page here https://plus.google.com/b/100116630212547145177/100116630212547145177/posts . Both are already verified. How do I merge these existing profiles which are already verified?
Branding | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Can i use the same keyword or similar keyword on title tag of multiple page ?
Greetings support, I would like to know if i can use similar keywords into my index title tag and than the similar keyword into the title tag of another page from the same site. Example:The site selling ''Dubai Apartments'' ''Dubai Vacation Rentals'' ''Dubai Holiday Apartments'' and ''Dubai Accommodation'' and would like to rank the index page for ''Dubai City Apartments'' and ''Dubai Accommodation'' and the category page /apartments/ for ''Dubai Apartments'' Is this ok ? because I do not want to lose the rank for the index page because it's already higher for ''Dubai City Apartments'' and ''Dubai Apartments'' I also have use this title tag on the home page: Dubai City Apartments | Dubai Accommodation | sitename brand and than i have category page such: /apartments/ title Dubai Apartments | Dubai Apartment Rentals | brandname /vacation-rentals/ title Dubai Vacation Rentals | Holiday Rentals Dubai | brandname /holiday-apartments/ Dubai Holiday Apartments | Dubai Vacation Apartments | brandname P.S. My index page is already rank for keyword such: dubai apartments, dubai holiday apartments, dubai vacation rentals and dubai accommodation but i want to know rank the category page. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Best, Giuseppe
Branding | | WorldEscape0 -
Facebook Like of Root Domain Linked To Facebook Page
If I install a Facebook Like Button on my Root Domain, How can I have the likes accumulated from that button augment those already on my brand's page? Thank you fellow knowledgenies of the Book of Face.
Branding | | Blobe0 -
Google+ business pages and Schema.org
Hi All, I'm an SEO for a company that runs a number of brands. I'm in the process of setting up the Google+ pages for these brands and decided to watch the Microformats & Schema.org - Real life Use Cases - Mozinar by Richard Baxter and the Online Reputation Management: Branding for SERP Domination Mozinar by Rhea Drysdale to help understand the best way to achieve this. One of the suggestions by Richard Baxter was to include the authorship schema.org, but I can't see how this can be done for an organisation instead of an individual. My question is, how do you manage authorship when your not able to link websites to Google+ business pages, only profiles? How have you managed this on SEOMoz for example? Hope you can help. Thanks Jojo
Branding | | JojoSeaman0 -
How to increase the value of naturally created low value links
My site is starting to generate natural links (hooray!). Basically, as part of my client sign-up process, I encourage my clients (home improvement contractors, plumbers, roofers, electricians) to link back to their own profile page on my site from their own site, either manually or using a badge I've created and made available. I have 2 questions about this. First of all, the vast majority of these links are from seriously low quality sites with basically no backlink profile whatsoever. Many of these sites aren't even indexed. So I'm starting to feel like I'm doing all this hard work for nothing. Is there anything I can do to increase the value of these incoming links, without spending too much time or money? I'm thinking directory submission and/or link wheel gigs on fiverr (really crappy SEO, I know, but just to get these sites bumped up a notch, and hopefully not do any damage to my site, as they're a step removed.) Second question, the profile pages that my clients can create on my site includes a nofollowed link to their site. Does the nofollow save me from having all of my incoming links tagged as reciprocal? Is there anything else I should be doing?
Branding | | menachemp0