Last night, I noticed that one of the bloggers on an experimental site that I’m running was linking to a lot of Wikipedia articles. I sent him an email explaining to him why we don’t want to link to Wikipedia articles, and it occurred to me that a post on the subject might make sense. After all, a LOT of people ARE linking to it, and maybe they haven’t thought it through.
Reasons NOT to Link to Wikipedia Articles
The #1 reason is that there are almost always better pages to link to elsewhere on the Internet. Presumably you’re either a personal blogger or a business blogger, but in either case, you want to generate traffic to your blog, right? So wouldn’t you want to support other websites that at least have a chance of supporting your site in return?
In other words, no matter how many links you point to articles on the Wikipedia, they’re not going to notice. And even if someone there DOES notice, they’re not going to return the favor. And even in the extraordinarily unlikely event that someone there does notice and does decide to link back to you, they’re going to put a “nofollow” tag on the link, which means you don’t receive the full authority of the link. You might get some traffic, which is cool, but keep in mind that this is a scenario which is about as likely as Wayne Lapierre donating money to the Americans Against the Tea Party website.
On the other hand, suppose you link to a thoughtful post on another blog. That blogger will probably notice the traffic they’re receiving from that link, and they might visit your site. More visitors is the name of the game, so that’s win #1 right there.
But if the blogger visiting your site LIKES your site, then you might get a link out of the deal. Even better, you might form a relationship with that other person, which could result in more than just links. It could result in business referrals, for example.
If you do link to the Wikipedia, you’ve given them that much more authority and weight in the search engine algorithms, which increases their already-considerable ability to outrank your sites for just about any keyword phrase that they want to. Why would you want to support that?
But probably the most important reason for linking to other blog posts from other bloggers that you like is that it’s a better experience for your users. Sure, some of the Wikipedia articles are informative, but the information isn’t reliable. Remember, we’re talking about the site where ANYONE can edit. Theoretically, that means there’s all kinds of voluntary peer review from good-hearted people who are trying to improve the project. But even well-intentioned editors are often mistaken.
And even the good articles there are mind-numbingly dull. There are lots of dull blog posts on lots of dull blogs, too, but haven’t you created more value for your users by finding an interesting blog with an interesting blog post on the subject? Creating value for your users matters, too.
For that matter, there are plenty of other wikis out there that are deserving of your support. For example, Memory Beta is a wonderful wiki about licensed works set in the Star Trek universe. You’re unlikely to attract a link back from them, but at least you’re linking to something interesting instead of to something dull.
The title of this post does include the word “almost” in parenthesis, though, doesn’t it? There’s a reason for that. Sometimes you DO want to link to a Wikipedia article. When might you want to do this?
Suppose you’re running a company where one of these lame, bogus consumer complaints sites is ranking in the top ten of the SERPs for the name of your company. Linking to the article on the Wikipedia about your company (assuming that your company is notable enough to have its own article) can help that page outrank the lame, bogus-complaint page. If you do this, you need to keep an eye on the article you’re linking to, though, because it could change at any time, and it might not be the best representation of your company.
Even in that situation, you’re probably better off finding a blogger who’s a customer, and providing some link support and love to them. I know of one company which sells multiple products, and they link to all of the legitimate reviews of each of their products from that product’s page. That company isn’t creating just loyal customers–they’re creating a loyal PR machine. Once a blogger finds out that they can get free high-quality links to their posts reviewing that company’s products, they usually buy more of their products and write more reviews, in order to get more links.
To paraphrase Henry Chinaski in the movie Barfly, I don’t HATE Wikipedia articles. I just FEEL better when they’re not around.
Read More about Search Engine Optimization
How Long Does It Take Google to Credit A Website with Links?
Natural Backlink Profile: Endless Ways to Build One
Website Not On Google? Why Some Internal Pages Aren't Indexed
RankBrain and Neural Matching: What Is the Difference?
Follow Reflective Dynamics |
Click here to follow Reflective Dynamics on Twitter: @refdynamics. Click here to follow SEO Theory on Twitter: @seo_theory. Reflective Dynamics' RSS Feed (summaries only) |