wikipedia links

Not quite sure what you're asking, Rob. If you're asking how to get a link to you on a wikipedia page, then your link must be applicable to the particular wiki page; the link won't be worth anything SEOwise, as wiki put the nofollow tag on all links but you can get some direct traffic from it, which always helps.

Hope this answers your question, though I suspect it may not ^^

natkits said:

.....the link won't be worth anything SEOwise, as wiki put the nofollow tag on all links...

Click to expand...

Actually I am not convinced of this. We know what the "nofollow" tag is MEANT to mean but my own empirical observations suggest that Google MAY take Wikipedia links into consideration when calculating SERPs

Regards

Dotty

Matt Cutts of Google defined how Google treat nofollow links, which is where my information above came from.

natkits said:

Matt Cutts of Google defined how Google treat nofollow links, which is where my information above came from.

Click to expand...

That may be true IN GENERAL but can you be sure that Google does not SPECIFICALLY use Wikipedia in the similar way that it has used DMOZ?

Think about it. If a link has survived in Wikipedia for a certain amount of time that amounts to a peer review of the relevance of that link to the subject in question. If I was writing a search engine algorithm that is exactly the sort of data I would want to use when calculating my rankings.

Regards

Dotty

Matt Cutts defined the nofollow tag as 'a vote of no confidence', meaning that Google give the link 'zero weight'.

If your research shows something different, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only person here to be interested in seeing your evidence.

natkits said:

Matt Cutts defined the nofollow tag as 'a vote of no confidence', meaning that Google give the link 'zero weight'.....

Click to expand...

Yes I know that but as I said I believe that to be the case IN GENERAL.

Can you be 100% sure that applies to Wikipedia??? Did he actually say that Google does not use Wikipedia links when calculating SERPs

Regards

Dotty

lol no, Matt didn't specifically say that applies to wikipedia, but why would he?? He said, specifically, that if you have a link that you don't want spidered and that you have no confidence in and that has no importance blah blah blah, then use the nofollow tag. That's as close to being a 100% sure as anyone can be with anything to do with Google serp's, seeing as it came straight from the horses mouth!

So, once again, this evidence you have... care to share?

I didn't say I has hard evidence I said my observations based on my own sites performance suggested that Google MAY use Wikipedia links in it's calculations.

You are very focused on a particular statement Matt Cutts has made but I think that it is a risky to make the assumptions you have made based on your own interpretation of this statement.

Nobody (except the guys that wrote it) knows the true nature of the Google algorithm.

Regards

Dotty

I'm arguing from an informed point here, Dotty, you on the other hand are arguing your point based on somthing you think 'MAY' happen and that flies in the face of 'accepted fact' which has been quoted by the one Google person (Matt Cutts) who everyone in the SEO industry listens to....

I know which point I believe.

natkits said:

I'm arguing from an informed point here, Dotty, you on the other hand are arguing your point based on somthing you think 'MAY' happen and that flies in the face of 'accepted fact' which has been quoted by the one Google person (Matt Cutts) who everyone in the SEO industry listens to....

I know which point I believe.

Click to expand...

Have to agree with that Dotty time for your afternoon kip

Earl

natkits said:

I'm arguing from an informed point here, Dotty, you on the other hand are arguing your point based on somthing you think 'MAY' happen and that flies in the face of 'accepted fact' which has been quoted by the one Google person (Matt Cutts) who everyone in the SEO industry listens to....

I know which point I believe.

Click to expand...

I will be brief because I am on my way out.

I didn't realise I was 'arguing' with anyone.

I DO understand what Matt Cutts has said and I DO understand how the "nofollow" link works.

What I have been trying to say is that this does not necessarily mean than Google does not use Wikipedia links in it's own algorthim. They wrote the algorithm after all - it would be very easy for them to ignore the nofollow link in this particular case.

Your 'informed point' is based on the general interpretation of Matt Cutt's statement by the SEO community. That is not hard evidence. I have no hard evidence either but I am prepared to keep an open mind.

Regards

Dotty

I realise I may have been somewhat argumentative here, Dotty, but there's a reason for it.

The interweb is a fantastic resource for the SEO novice, apart from the fact that many, many people spew what they think 'MAY' be factual or likely when in 'FACT' they don't know what they're talking about.

If more people posted what they KNOW rather than what htey THINK, there'd be a lot more accurate info out there, then the novices wouldn't have to trawl through a massive amount of crap just to find the odd salient, relevant bit of advice that they're actually in need of.

Rant over

You do it your way, Dotty, and i'll do it mine ^^

You appear to be painting yourself as an expert in command of the facts while at the same time suggesting that I am somehow misleading people.

In fact there are only two ‘facts’ here and we are in agreement on both:

Fact 1 – “Matt Cutts of Google defined how Google treat nofollow links” – I agree

Fact 2 – “wiki put the nofollow tag on all links” - I agree

You (as admittedly are most of the SEO community) are taking the these two facts and making the assumption that Google will not consider any links that appear on Wikipedia pages when calculating search engine results. This is not a FACT – it is an ASSUMPTION.

All I have said is that from my own observations I believe that Google may still somehow give weighting to links from Wikipedia articles. I am not claiming it to be a fact, just an educated guess.

Outside the select few within Google who really knows how their algorithm works? Do you think that Matt Cutts is going to tell everybody how it all works? Can you be SURE that “the link won't be worth anything SEOwise”?

Regards

Dotty

I can think of loads of ways a wiki link is worthwile SEO wise....

People use wiki, they find the linked to site, they like it, they link to it on their site. Bingo a extra incoming link.

Wiki is popular, it could lead to lots of incoming links.

Who is to say some people are not trawling wiki and grabbing content, or manually copying stuff, and putting the links back in, without the nofollow?
Directories could use wiki to populate areas with links, real links.... What about all the other search engines that may not be using no follow?

Wiki pages are used on many other sites as sources of info, leading to many, many ways to get to the same links, meaning more people find the site. SEO is not just about page rank, its pretty important to get people to visit your site.

Wiki is a good way of doing that.

People use wiki for all sorts of purposes, from research to general surfing, its got a wide audience, and many of the people who edit the particlar page the link is on have a great interest in the area, so your getting your link seen by people who will be interested in the link. Great for SEO.

Not only that, wiki is updated and edited quite often, with links of dubious quality being removed, so regardless of any no follow link, its a fairly obvious that if a link remains for a long time in a popular page on wiki, that that link is a authority, and to be taken seriously. Who is to say a dmoz editor wont be looking in wiki for links to add? Who cares if google adds to page rank for it? They may do, they may not.

Even if they dont add page rank, they could be using it as some other part of their algo.

There are few known facts when it comes to google, you cant honestly rely on what matt says, you can only go by what google states officially.

You cant always go by what someone posts about there own findings, as what worked last year, may not work next year, google didnt just sit down write some spidering and indexing code then forget about it, they keep on working on it.

SEO should be about investigating, and learning, experimenting and continously improving.

If people just accepted what was already written on the net, and didnt do their own experiments then people would still be convinced meta tags were the best thing since sliced bread.

I read an article some time back that out of 600 pages on Wikipedia monitored, 95% of them were in the top 5 of the results - rumours then circulated on the net that Google was giving Wikipedia a "hand"

Maybe we should do a test where we take a brand new site, put some content on it and add only an incoming wiki link and see what happens. That should sort out the arguments once and for all.

Can I just add a reminder to this thread - and I'm speaking as a regular Wikipedia editor and contributor here, user:bedesboy - that information and links should not be added to WP for commercial gain.

For the guidelines, take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Spam - and especially the section "how not to be a spammer".

You might be interested to know that at least one SEO I know thinks WP links are worth something. He and I had a disagreement after I found out he'd added my name to WP list of copywriters. When I found the link he'd planted I removed it - I realise he meant well, but I'm not interested in receiving business (or PageRank) in such an unethical way.

I'm arguing from an informed point here, Dotty, you on the other hand are arguing your point based on somthing you think 'MAY' happen and that flies in the face of 'accepted fact' which has been quoted by the one Google person (Matt Cutts) who everyone in the SEO industry listens to....

I know which point I believe.

Click to expand...

Thats not arguing from an informed point of view, it's arguing from ONE point of the view, the school of 'everything Matt Cutts says is right' using someone elses point of view does not make you more informed than Dotty who I've seen give some very vaild and accurate advice and who was suggesting that there was a good reason to believe that there was still value in those wikipedia links.

Believe Matt Cutts as some all time guru if you must but evidence of people testing his statements suggests that he may not always be right http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/matt-cutts-confirms-nofollow-fix.html

Frankly the only proof of whether it's true or not is to try it for yourself. But I think if you are lucky enough to get a genuine link in Wikipedia then it's worth hanging onto.

And if you want an informed view about Wikipedia and Nofollow - how about actually looking at what Wikipedia itself says
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow

Google takes "nofollow" literally and does not "follow" the link at all. That is supposedly their official statement, but experiments conducted by SEOs show conflicting results. They show instead that Google does follow the link, but not index the linked-to page, unless it was in Google's index already for other reasons (such as other, non-nofollow links that point to the page).[8] Links with NOFOLLOW are included in the back-links reporting data at Google's Webmaster Central.[9]

Click to expand...

If Google are treating links with NOFOLLOW as zero-weighted then the value of having a link from a Wiki page is purely from a visibility point of view... its another page with a link to your web site, there is value in that even if the NOFOLLOW tag removes the SEO value.

Its too easy to get hung up on a single aspect of SEO, if you find a way of getting a link on Wiki back to your web site let me know!

billhilton said:

Can I just add a reminder to this thread - and I'm speaking as a regular Wikipedia editor and contributor here, user:bedesboy - that information and links should not be added to WP for commercial gain...

Click to expand...

Hi Bill

It's great to have a Wikipedia editor's input.

All three of the sites in my signature on this post appear on the Wikipedia Horsham page. I developed and run them all and they complement each other but hopefully they do not breach the guidelines for the following reasons:

These sites have the backing of Horsham District Council and many other Horsham organisations who regularly use them to promulgate public information about Horsham.

2 of the 3 sites are non-profit making, in fact they take no revenue at all. The banner space is given free, either to local organisations that help run them or local charities.

The only one that makes a profit (and I have declared I have a commercial interest in) is the Visit Horsham site. This site is owned by a body that comprises of the local council and local traders. The information it contains is free to all users (profits coming from the subscription fees paid by 'premium' participating businesses - most get a free listing).

All 3 sites have received great feedback from local residents and particularly people thinking of moving to Horsham who are seeking information about the district.

Also first and foremost I consider myself a Horsham resident and active member of the community. This community includes several other local Horsham residents that run local community websites that appear on the Horsham Wikipedia page. Between us we have formed a group that is proud to promote Horsham and give Horsham residents an internet voice. Ours are truly 'local' sites that genuinely put the interests of Horsham residents first (unlike the numerous national, commercial, 'local' internet franchises that are now trying to promote themselves as "the best site for Horsham etc")

Regards

Dotty

ps I have been involved with these sites for the last two years. I have meticulously monitored the sites stats and performance on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. All links have been built up organically and the only SEO work carried out has been done by myself (a developer, not an SEO) the Structures of the three sites are very different and two of them do not currently lend themselves to optimisation (the forum code is a bit dated and Virtual Horsham is too new and too 'Ajaxy') The site that has received most my effort is now no2 for Google "UK" results and no3 or 4 (depending which way the wind blows) for Google "web" results. I am very please with this as the site has only been live for less than a year and there is considerable competition from the local newspaper and all the 'best' sites etc.

As has been pointed out there are many benefits for having these links on the Wikipedia site regardless of how the "nofollow" link works. - I just thought (at the start of this thread) I would share my additional thoughts with UKBF. I wasn't quite expecting the response it generated!