Do Wikipedia links add value?

[Jaybeamer]

Do Wikipedia pages/links add any value to your website and SEO?

We are not an advertiser or seller of products, whereas we help people with planning so say I add an external link from an established page relevant to our service, will we get penalised by Wikipedia?

Or is it worth setting up a page about our company, similar to say - the BBC with an external link?

Thanks!

[billhartzer]

If you have good content on your site, there's a good chance that someone will add a link to your site from WIkipedia if it's appropriate for the topic. That happened to me and my site, and I can tell you that the links from Wikipedia helped: and I even see traffic from Wikipedia. I wouldn't be concerned whether or not the links are going to hurt your site: they will help establish trust.

If your business is established enough and is a public company, for example, there's a good chance that you either have a Wikipedia page for your company or you should start creating one. You'll need plenty of neutral informational type of mentions (news articles, etc.) that establishes your business's credibility.

One important thing to note here is that Wikipedia is a part of the Knowledge Graph, and it's important to get your site/business/link mentioned in the Knowledge Graph. Wikipedia is one way, but you can also participate in Freebase, which will help, as well.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Best practice is the only way with Wikipedia Julian, as each update is manually checked by an admin.

Just make sure that when you add a link, it is very much on topic. They aren't daft over there (sadly!).

For a page of your own, they will want to see you in the press, magazines, news - anything that is considered reputable. But this can also include off-line sources such as newspapers or books.

-Andy

[Jaybeamer]

Thanks Andy - I think it would better for us to add external links to start off with and then pull together a company page over time. What is deemed as a 'reliable source' for Wikipedia?

Say we start adding links to relevant pages to our website - for example, linking from a page about Birds to our bird gallery, if these are found do Wikipedia just remove them or would we be penalised?

What's the best way to start adding links carefully - best practise?

-Julian

[Andy.Drinkwater]

If you want to setup a company page in Wikipedia, make sure you have lots of reliable sources that you can cite before you start. Lack of these will prevent the page from being accepted.

The links do add value though. I have been adding links into Wikipedia for some time now and have seen noticeable jumps in the SERPs for my clients. Wikipedia, and other similar sources, are where I always start a link building campaign.

Just be careful how you do it because someone will come and check the link to make sure it isn't an obvious attempt at just gaining a link for SEO purposes.

-Andy