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03.06.07
Branding In The Age of Wikipedia
 By
Jason Lee Miller
Though the authority of Wikipedia is still debated – good luck in citing it as a source in collegiate work – the site enjoys a comfortable symbiosis with Google and it's need to index the world's information. Wikipedia, in turn, is bolstered by Google's reach and favorable rankings – which is why businesses need to find ways to be mentioned there.
And just how large of a boost has Google given it? Well, let's start by saying Wikipedia has grown by 680 percent in the last two years – a growth rate many a-startup would stoop to dastardly levels to achieve. Not all of that growth is courtesy of Google. Just two-thirds of it.
Bill Tancer, General Manager of Global Research for Hitwise, says that Wikipedia is now the number one external domain visited from Google's homepage. On the top 3000 list of reference sites, Wikipedia is the most used, accounting for nearly a quarter of all visits.
This 600 plus percent growth is the second round of explosiveness for the publicly-edited encyclopedia. Between 2004 and May 2005, Wikipedia had a growth spurt much like this more recent one.
Shortly after that, as Tancer details on the Hitwise blog, search became a much stronger force in Wikipedia's life. In July 2005, Google searches leading to Wikipedia suddenly and, somewhat mysteriously spiked…really, really high. So high did the Google-generated traffic spike that it has been relatively unmatched until fall of last year.
At the beginning of that resplendent up-tick in traffic, a Google search for "tsunami" (this is just months after the big one, remember) brought in Wikipedia as the number six search result. Compare that to today, where Wikipedia is, as with many, many terms, the number one result.
Given how the most relevant search engine, and much of the information-seeking world, keeps Wikipedia in such high regard, isn't it interesting how universities and stone-age encyclopediaphiles (I have no idea how to make a new English word out of two Greek ones by the way, so you'll have to forgive me) still won't give Wikipedia a break?
It may not matter so much. While self-respecting collegiate types wouldn't dare cite Wikipedia for it's obvious flaws (they might however note the sources listed at the bottom of most articles, using them as a launching pad for their research – hint, hint), the biggest users of Wikipedia appear to be grade-schoolers.
"During the month of February," Tancer writes for Time, "which is also Black History month, three of the top 20 terms sending traffic to Wikipedia were for prominent black historical figures, while two other searches were likely motivated by President's Day. In fact, changing time-frames to any other month during the school year reveals a similar result."
Of course, with any luck when researching for Science class, they didn't land on Simple English Wikipedia on a day when the "Earth spins like a basket bell on dennis rodmans finger," and when "the Earth's liquid water makes internet possible." Did you know there is not a lot of internet in the deserts – only in scotland?
Ah well, maybe co-founder Larry Sanger can improve on the current model with his Citizendium project. Until then, it might be a good idea to ensure, if you want to found, that is, your organization's presence in Wikipedia – not in a glowing, biased, and trumped up way like we seen often lately from system abusers – just being sure you're there.
You've got gamers, and then you've got the smart ones that know how to make sure their brand is out there, everywhere it matters, and find ways to get mentioned. Soon, in addition to link-baiting for Google search results, a good Wiki-baiting campaign may be just as effective.
About the Author:
Jason L. Miller is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.
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