If people haven't read TheVanBlog, they should. Anybody who reads this forum would be thrilled with the info that can be found in here. In its most recent posting, there's talk of a minor update at Google, that seems to favor "the little guy."

And links to a lot of other blog posts that say Google is taking it out on the big guy, Wikipedia. I don't agree with every detain in all of them ( I've seen WP rank on page 14 before - they don't automatically get the #1 slot for every term! ), but I've tried a few searches I keep an eye on, and it's true that WikiWorld is slipping.

The most interesting theory I ran across ( at least so far ) is that Google bases its algorithm on research papers, in that the ones that are referred to often must be good, but also that ones that don't refer to any other research papers are suspicious. In this case, adding a blanket of nofollow to every link on every page, even their references to CNN and BBC, has hurt them, taken away from their credibility and authority. If that's the case ( and this is a big if ) we've learned a lesson that can apply to our own pages.

Another theory is that (1) WikiPedia has announced plans to launch their own search engine and (2) there's been a lot of speculation that WP could dethrone Google. Personally I don't really believe this, because if we know anything about Google, it's that they loathe doing things by hand, prefer using formulas.

So what does everybody think?

Personally, this is an issue that is of little or no concern to me and it should be to most others in our industry as well.

IF Google is devaluing Wikipedia, it's because the low-grade SEO-types trying to get an inbound link from it caused the situation to happen. And if it's only one site (no matter how large it is), it won't and shouldn't affect the rest of us in general.

The only reason it's an issue at all is because SEO-types made it an issue. Most of the rest of the world probably didn't and won't even notice.

Meh - I'm with Adam on this one; I didn't notice and don't care about the issue.

if it's true it shouldn't help or hurt most sites.

Yeah I'm not sure if that thing works with all the sites but still who knows.

If what thing works with all the sites?

The people who are most impacted will be people looking for info. Hopefully if Wikipedia is falling in the SERPs it means other pages with better info are coming out. But I don't think so.

I really think their blanket nofollow has hurt them. They're an academic site more than anything else, trying to give knowledge as their product, and I think not linking out hurts their credibility, which is basically equal to their value. If they don't back the information they offer up with other sources, that suggests less confidence in that information.

I'm not saying this to whip a dead horse. I think Wikipedia can be a test case we learn from. If bad things happened to them for not linking out, it probably means people who write and submit articles, out to have links in them, besides to their own site. That's especially true for the articles on your site, but the ones you distribute, you want to be able to pass lots of mojo onto you.

I'm not sure that nofollow in and of itself hurt its credibility. The very nature of Wikipedia itself, and the ability editors have to abuse it hurts its credibility.

If you are going to set up a system that allows for user input, especially an open system that allows for large volumes of user input, you need checks and balances in place to ensure that the input entered is valid and objective. This is especially true with an encyclopedia site...you're not going to have ANY idea what someone is going to do.

In other words, the problem isn't the nofollow in and of itself: it's what precipitated the need for the nofollow. Mind you, it won't get solved in our lifetimes so it's a moot point.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

In other words, the problem isn't the nofollow in and of itself: it's what precipitated the need for the nofollow. Mind you, it won't get solved in our lifetimes so it's a moot point.

I read this a few times, and it's actually a really good point. Nofollow means you think something is a good place to look, and might be a good resource, but you can't actually vouch for it. And that's all of Wikipedia by its very nature. Steve Colbert, the fake news reporter, is banned from WP for a segment he did, telling his viewers how great WP is, how you can say the African elephant population is on the rise and global warming isn't caused by human activity, and now these things are in an encyclopedia, so they must be true. Even though this stuff generally sorts itself out, I was reading about users claiming "ownership" over different articles and "point of view pushing." Seems to be a bigger issue than I realized, and that, like you said, Wikipedia's problem maybe isn't not having links outward, so much as not having something you can be confident is good content at any particular point.

Since we're on the subject, I have a related question. Now the answer to this doesn't really change my life in any meaningful way, but I seem to be the .NET guy around here, and I think all programmers have the type of mind where they're curious, and want to know the distinctions and effects. Anyway, I've been thinking, and it seems like nofollow probably doesn't mean what we think.

What if I created a brand new web site, at this point Google won't know about it. Because they learn from links, not from DNS records. So let's say I spam Wikipedia with a bunch of nofollow links to my brand new web site. Those are non-votes, and wouldn't count as backlinks, but I'm thinking Google probably would follow them and crawl this new site. I mean, it's in their best interest to know as much about the web as possible, so when they learn a site exists, it seems like they would look at it, decide whether to index it or not based on its content, and set its link count at zero.

I can't even conceive how this would be useful to know, but now I'm curious.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if you tried that. Technically and according to the public Google stance they won't follow a link if it has a nofollow on it, but that doesn't mean they won't follow it. Maybe the link just won't get any brownie points in the algorithm.

The only argument against them following the links is they wouldn't really know it's a page they don't know about until they follow it. And it's not likely a link to a brand new site would stay on WikiPedia for very long. You could test it with some blog commenting though.

As for WikiPedia falling I would assume the nofollows are also being applied to internal links, which would mean the site overall had lost a lot of links. I say I assume because I almost never look at WikiPedia. But if nofollow is being applied to internal links it would probably be enough to get many pages to slip.

A lot of people have been complaining that the WikiPedia because of its authority ranks for far too many things so maybe Google has made a few other tweaks as well.

The other thought on the latest possible algorithm update is that Google turned the trust and authority knob back down a little so being an older site isn't quite the benefit it was last week. That would give newer sites a better chance of competing assuming the knob stays dialed where it is and doesn't get turned back up again.

By the way that's one mighty fine blog you linked to. I can honestly say I've read every single post there.

I also changed the link so it would go directly to the post on the algorithm update since that post is no longer in full on the main page.

By the way that's one mighty fine blog you linked to. I can honestly say I've read every single post there.

.....

Chris I can self promo with the best of them can't I? I didn't even have to drop the link.

I dunno about that Van Blog. I hear the owner of that thing is a real prick.

He is, but his blog is good.

I heard of this php plug-in wikipedia-nofollow that make every link in your site that links to them add the nofollow to their link. well this effect might be from that. if I had taken the time to get a good link from them and I linked to them I would add the the nofollow to the links I send them. I think this will hurt them more than help.