I’ve been reading quite a lot of discussion relating to the rankings Google* gives to Wikipedia entries of late. In general, if you search for a brand using Google, chances are its Wikipedia entry will be there on the first page. Take, for example, Coca-Cola. A quick search shows that the soft drink company’s entry on the human-driven encyclopaedia comes up in fourth spot. Again, pull up a search using Microsoft as a search term and it’s right up there too.
Some people aren’t exactly happy about this and have went as far as to suggest that the leading search engine has manipulated its search results to accommodate Wikipedia. And again, this discussion isn’t new. Similar comments were made almost two years ago.
But Google isn’t manipulating anything. It’s blogs and organic SEO that are driving Wikipedia entries to the top of search results. If we go back to my two examples: Coca-Cola and Microsoft and run their Wikipedia entry urls through Technorati, like so:
In both examples you’ll see a considerable number of bloggers linking to each entry. Coca-Cola and Microsoft each have 110 and 1343 blogs linking to it respectively. Not surprisingly, Microsoft has a lot more.
Now, again, if we use these same results in Technorati but switch it to show links by authority like so:
In both cases you’ll see some reasonably authoritative sites linking to each. Microsoft’s more so than Coca-Cola’s. And how does Google partly measure whether to put a webpage further up the search engines? By measuring inbound links and their authority. Thus meaning that Google has no hidden agenda – it is merely reacting to the natural and unbiased blogging ecosystem driven by the people for the people. Anyone who actually reads this blog will know that I link to Wikipedia entries all the time – probably a bit too much in fact.
So what does this mean for brands? Well, I see two mechanisms at work here – both driven by the people. First you’ve got the Thinkers (those who write the Wikipedia entries) and then you’ve got the Linkers (those who link to them from their blogs). Both co-creating content and inextricably linked but each relatively unaware of one another. From a PR point of view, these two mechanisms are the cogs that turn the motor (Google) which inturn generates these high visibility search emissions.
So effectively, it isn’t Google that the brand should be explicitly concerned about – it’s the people that are powering it.
*I know there are other search engines but in this instance I just refered to Google as to keep it simple.
Stephen is a communications consultant based out of the UK. You can connect with him on Twitter or check out his LinkedIn profile. | Email Stephen
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AntonyMayfield
You’re right to rebut the idea of Google having a pro-Wikipedia agenda – it has a usefulness agaenda and that’s it: it just wants to find the most useful pages.
The thinkers and linkers – nice way of putting it – create content and give it reputation within the networks that Google sees.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the blog ecosystem was unbiased, but social media do provide a massive number of clues for the search engines about what a people think is useful / relevant on a given subject.
Duane Brown
You should always worry about people when they get involved in anything. Someone always has an agenda; however, in this case it’s simply people wanting to get the best information out there and that just happens to be Wikipedia. I know I link to it quite a bit and I don’t mind as I always double check to make sure the entry is correct and not “bias”.
Kev price
I completely agree.
Websites and bloggers tend to link to wikipedia to give an unbiased description and background of what something is.
If you want people to link to your brand its usually because of something you have done, rather than describing who you are.
So the brands should be thinking about their activity if they want links