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Feb
13
14
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Wikipedia Declares Defeat |
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A few weeks ago (before I got sick), Wikipedia announced that they are "nofollowing" all links contained by articles — effectively telling search engines the links are untrusted and should not be factored as heavily into a ranking algorithm. I think this is patently ridiculous! If wikipedia tells the world its links are not trustworthy of a vote, what does it say about the reliability of their content as a whole? Isn't the point of collaborative editing that, by and large, the product of such an aggregation of edits — some good, some bad, will collectively achieve something high in quality? Rand Fishkin asserts that it's a good choice. I respectfully disagree. Comment spam has not been stopped by the nofollow attribute. Most spammers do it regardless just to see what sticks, and to get something indexed in the first place. I believe that this policy, a knee-jerk reaction to a few silly SEO contests, is actually harmful. It removes a series of high quality votes that power the link-equity based ranking algorithms of modern search engines, as well as broadens the definition of what nofollow really is — an already hazy definition, cheapening its purpose entirely. It is my belief that nofollow should only be applied to those links that are unedited or perhaps glanced at — like forums and blog comments. Wikipedia is mercilessly edited. It does not fit this profile at all. A Solution?Perhaps they can nofollow all links that are younger than 90 days to give editors some time to nuke them and remove some of the motivation in that the gains are less immediate. That would make sense, achieve just as much (whatever extent that is), and its entirely doable with some clever programming. What do you think? Related posts: Wikipedia Is Link Nazi Of 2006 No Links For You! I wrote the Wikipedia page on... 6 Questions To Weed Out Charlatan SEOs. Make Suggestions … There are a lot of idiots charlatans still out there... Influence of a tilde, ~, on a Link's Value I have never gotten an authorative answer to this question,... DMOZ Is Back. But Why Should You Care? If you log into your DMOZ editor account today, you'll... Free SEO Site Clinic Sites Selected The sites for the Free SEO Site Clinic are selected! ...
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"14 Wise Comments Banged Out Somewhere On The Internet ..."
You'll already find some WordPress plugins for adding nofollow to any Wikipedia links. If they can do it, so can bloggers. I've also removed nofollow from my installation of WordPress. Since I moderate all comments, I want to promote commenting as well as help in the positioning of those bloggers that comment on my site.
Word. Spammer: "Wikki wikki wikki wikki!" Translation: Their move here implies that even the most adamant, disciplined Deletionism has perhaps grown weary of SEO issues, contests and otherwise. As for what happens next, their nofollow change will probably stave off some spam but not all of it. I wonder if/how it might affect their relevancy in the long-term. Web 2.0 sites are teaching Web Marketers many things. One lesson is that sometimes it can be about fighting fire with fire (automation with automation). Putting in such a trial period system might have been a much better solution. Or perhaps we're all missing the point entirely. Maybe the crux of it is simply to put an end to Wikilobbying before the election year hits.
I think the 90 day idea is great. It results in only trusted, moderated links obtaining wikipedia's linking weight.
Interesting perspective. As I see it, links are also endorsements, so Wikipedia may find links from their site valuable for understanding a subject, yet not something they care to endorse through a link's associated PageRank.
Nofollow hasn't accomplished anything.
I think you touched on an even bigger question, which is why should any one simply assume that wikipedia's content, let alone its links, are trustworthy or credible to begin with? I think conceptually, the idea of collaborative editing should yield a result of high quality, but human nature flies in the face of that. Throughout history, we see countless examples of instances where the populace believed one thing, while the reality was the exact opposite.
I have a feeling that this is more to do with keeping SEOers out and unbiased editors in…
I believe that this change actually helped our rankings as some of our competitors have a huge amount of links in every relevant article of Wikipedia. We have almost no links there - so when their links became nofollow our rankings seemed to rise.
another vote for the 90 day idea…would give the editors plenty of time to remove any spam. though, I do find it hard to get excited about. maybe if I had some links from wikipedia It'd be different
I dont mind losing backlinks because of the nofollow being implemented, I am still getting good traffic from wikipedia
I too like the 90 day idea . . . wikipedia seems to be saying that they are overwhealmed and just don't have the mod staff to handle everything. Seems that way, huh?
Now whenever Wikipedia copies an obscure topic page from my website (which happens all the time), the new wikipedia article immediately jumps right ahead of my page in the google rankings. Hardly fair for what is stolen content! pilkster.com » Blog Archive » Wikipedia[...] Jaimie Sirovich has made a (belated) post about Wikipedia nofollowing all their outbound links. I never commented on this issue when it first arose, but Jaimies clever title brought his article to my attention. He suggests that Wikipedia nofollow outbounds for the first 90 days. I think this is a bit silly as Google et al can currently decide the age of a link and weight it accordingly should they decide to do so - and Wikipedia and other sites 'aging' links on-site would just complicate matters even further. [...]
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