Link From Wikipedia Worthwhile?
-
Hi Mozzers,
Is it worth the trouble spending the time to get a link from Wikipedia considering they're nofollow?
-
No problem JP. Glad we could help out. Feel free to reach out to us if you have specific questions on link building. We've trained many folks and are happy to help out.
-
Catalyst,
I know this wasn't my question, but thank you for that insight. That really puts a lot of my previous fears/hesitations to try and build links on Wikipedia to rest.
This is great 'feather-in-the-cap' for any SEO who has been struggling to build links via Wikipedia.
Thank you again for this great insight!
-
There's a trick to getting your Wikipedia articles or contributions posted. Wikipedia is like a credit card, if you have good credit then you can do whatever you want but if you have bad or no credit then you can't do what you want.
The other thing is that Wikipedia functions like a virtual world with actual territories over certain pieces of content. These territories or content niches are controlled by an individual or two so when a newcomer comes and starts making content contributions, its like declaring war on someone who invaded your territory.
If you want to get our contributions accepted in Wikipedia then you have to start small in that niche. Start by making simple edits to build up your influence, perhaps 1 - 3 per day by pruning dead links or updating link rot.
Then in a couple of weeks, move on to minor article submissions such as if you work for an automotive brand then you could update the stats on a new model or put a mention about a new plant species in.
By now, your user permissions would have been upgraded twice from a nonregistered user to a new then auto-confirmed user. Try to get more permissions added to your account, perhaps start reviewing bad edits and start flagging them. Try to show stewardship over a period of a few months to a several years on the content niche that you'd like to own.
After six months to one year, submit your contribution and see if it gets denied. It won't be denied now because by now you be considered an active member of the community who's contributed regularly by doing your part (click on any user in Wikipedia and you'll see their history of edits, awards, etc).
-
If you have a way of getting a link from Wikipedia, even if it takes some effort then I would definitely take it.
Even if we assume Google completely ignores the nofollow and we take SEO out of the equation entirely then it could be worth it for the potential visitors you could get as a direct result of the link.
-
I definitely agree with Catalyst here, all I'm saying is that the criteria they use for establishing 'what's a quality contribution' is extremely subjective.
I've created a number of entries that could be considered much more 'high-value' than the other links on the page only to get stuck in the sandbox.
Not to discourage you from trying to get added to Wikipedia, I'm just saying don't get discouraged if your contribution doesn't get added to the page.
Like anything else in SEO, if at first you don't succeed; try, try again!
-
It's worth it because if you manage to write a page of copy on Wikipedia and your citations point back towards your website. People who research the Wikipedia article may jump to your website via the citation and reference your article instead.
Basically write a fairly comprehensive article but leave out some key elements, all of which are found on the secondary information source that is owned by you.
The key is to think long term. Wikipedia typically ranks for competitive queries so you may not get your links in the beginning but you have a chance to build them over time.
One of my mentors taught me that it's not so much as building a single link but rather how you can build system that will build links for you while you sleep. If you seed enough systems around on the internet, one or two links here and there won't matter much but over the course of your career, you will find that you've racked up a lot of links and continue to do so.
-
Wikipedia can drive a lot of traffic, so while it won't help with rankings, it may help you accomplish the goal that rankings are supposed to be accomplishing.
-
Wayne,
IMO I don't think it's worth it. I mean, while it's a great link to have, the rigamarole an SEO has to go through in order to get their link added to the list of resources or cited within the document is so tenuous that it'd be more advantageous to go and try to scout links from a few other, high-yield sites.
In all honesty, you'd probably be a lot more successful doing that than trying to dig your way out of Wiki's sandbox. Nevertheless, it's worth a shot. If your submission isn't accepted there, you can always try to spin it somewhere else.
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
-
What is the process of link earning to avoid link building?
Hi All, I want process to earning links for new SEO 2014. Can anybody explain? Thanks, Akhilesh
Link Building | | dotlineseo0 -
Do links from between common sites you run count as "bad" links?
Hi everyone,
Link Building | | AMA-DataSet
Iv recently been asked to review a group of sites. There are 3 sites, each of these sites has a link to the other two sites within the footer or the navigation.
These site are about a similar topic each provides a different perceptive or aims at a specific section of the industry so its not like the links are to irreverent sites. However because the links are in a global section they are repeated thousands of times on each site and count for a large proportion of the link profile to each site, I don't think this is good practise and I want to remove them or at least add a no-follow but my client insists they are relevant to each other and doesn't not want the links removing. What would be best in this situation? remove them? no-follow them? or leave them? Thank you in advance,
Liam0 -
Link Building - Affiliate Link Programs
I'm getting some conflicting information when researching this... I want to create the most organic link building strategy that not only gets high authority sites linking to a website, but relevant websites. I'm creating an affiliate link program where I link to partner and affiliate companies, who in turn link back to me. The question is where to put these links. I was initially thinking of putting them in the footer so they add credibility to every page, and in turn ask my affiliates to do the same thing. However; some sources say that Google no longer looks at links in the footer section. Is it true that Google doesn't count links in footer sections? And do you have any tips on creating this Affiliate Link Program?
Link Building | | reidsteven750 -
Do links from the second page of an article pass link juice?
I have been writing for some sites with a high overall page rank and the articles are being viewed as quality by search engines as well. However, they usually put a link to my site at the very end of the article and then break the article down into two pages to increase ad revenue. It seems that I'm not getting much credit for that link even if the page has a high SEOmoz/PR score. I want to know if I am getting the benefit from these links. If not, how do I make sure I get the most bang, even if my link is on a second page of the article? Here is an example of what I mean: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2012/08/22/kanban-for-customers-how-to-increase-transparency-in-your-business/
Link Building | | LawrenceWatkins0 -
Back-link Quantity
Hi there, I am writing a post for a well respected blog in our industry. I'm debating on either to target 1 key-phrase in this post with an external back-link, or to go target 2-3 back-links in the post. Just a few questions on this: Would including 1 external back link be more beneficial than having 2 or 3 external back-links in the post? Kind Regards
Link Building | | Paul780 -
Reciprocal Links Or One Way Links?
After reading a recent blog post on guest blogging and ways to build relationships for link building purposes, I began to wonder about something. It is my understanding that one way backlinks are superior to reciprocal linkage, but reciprocal is better than no link at all. So is it still worthwhile to do reciprocal guest blogging, and will the value of the links be worth it when completed? Or should we just be of the opinion that: One Way Link > Reciprocal > No link
Link Building | | dignan990 -
Should I unify my links?
Checking at opensiteexplorer.org I can see that: mydomain.com has has DA 26, linking root domains 1, total links 22 www.mydomain.com has DA 26, linking root domains 31, total links 89 The 22 links to the non-www domain come from the same site, which I would be able to convince to change to the www domain. Is it worth doing it? Will it add up to better DA? Thanks J PS: with only 32 root domains I think I have to do some serious link building...
Link Building | | TIBA0 -
Porn link ...
I just ran https://www.majesticseo.com report for back links and showed me that I have one link at porn site ... not sure if it will be appropriate to post it here. The link was discovered on 03.05.11 and when I visited today link is not there... I dont know who put that link there. Can I get penalty for that from google? Can it be a mistake?
Link Building | | DiamondJewelryEmpire1