Wikipedia has just completed it’s annual Fundraising Drive – a million dollars in pure cash have found their way to the Wikimedia foundation. Wikipedia used to be cool, and donating to a non-profit organization like Wikipedia was definitely one of the most altruistic and philanthropic deeds one could do. But in the past, Wikipedia used to take money from the community, and use it for hosting and other expenses. But now Wikipedia takes something else too, and this time, it doesn’t give back to the community. Wikipedia wants you to link to it, but it’s now officially unwilling to “link” back to you.
They say it’s to combat Link Spam – but isn’t that what the moderators, anti-spam services, and the millions of wiki contributors are for? Wikipedia has officially stated that all outgoing (external) links from Wikipedia to other sites will use the rel="nofollow" attribute. But that’s not all – Wikipedia openly thanks everyone that sends links their way (i.e. bloggers, news posters, and researchers), but Wikipedia still seems to think itself above The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Wikipedia.org has moved from an Alexa rank of 20 to a rank of 12 having already briefly visited rank 8. At the news of wikipedia.org hitting the top 10, our beloved developers screamed “INCOMING!!!” and dived for cover. But they’ve been doing that every day since 2004.
Obviously Wikipedia has only accomplished this stunning feat by the help of honest and hard-linking bloggers & webmasters around the world. But Wikipedia feels we’re unworthy of real reciprocal links for content we work hard to research and publish so Wikipedia can cite its sources and give its viewers links for further reading.
Boycott Wikipedia’s links! At NeoSmart Technologies, we absoloutely refuse to use “nofollow” tag, but for Wikipedia, we’re making an exception.
Give Wikipedia a taste of their own medicine!
Use rel=”nofollow” for Wikipedia, they deserve it!
We link to Wikipedia in many research-based articles, but from now on, they won’t reap the benefits, SEO-wise. One site might not make a difference, but you too can help! Don’t let Wikipedia get away with neglecting to share the SEO juice: show them we’re not going to take nofollow as an answer! If we’re worthy of being linked to for Wikipedia readers to benefit from, we’re more than entitled to the SEO juice too!
[wikipedia’s nofollow is nonsense] [no to nofollow] [DoFollow for WordPress]
I don’t know, I mean, from the community-based wiki view, what’s the need for a link back credit? You’re getting traffic, I don’t see the big deal of the nofollow tag, I can’t see how else it would be used other than for practicality. Or am I missing something? Wikipedia is mighty useful as it is, and I know to me it’s a completely free service, I never gave them money, probably the same for most all its users. I think donating to them would be under the assumption that it’s only to maintain what they already do, not for anything else in return.
Jesse, I agree. We’re not saying not to donate cash to Wikipedia, just not to donate SEO juice to them.
We may still be getting the traffic, but we don’t get the SEO rankings. For instance, we’re linked in Wikipedia all over the place with reference to Windows Vista articles. If you go to the Windows Vista article, you can follow a link to our site. But the problem arises when you search for a Vista-related article.
It used to be that if your post was linked in Wikipedia, you’d show up on Google when you search for a related term. Wikipedia has a very high “link quality” factor, meaning that if you were linked from Wikipedia, your chances of being higher-up in a Google search were bigger, and that was fair. After all, if you’re worthy of being linked in an encyclopedia, are you not worthy of being in a Google search too?
But now being linked to from an encyclopedia doesn’t give your blog more “credability” on Google & Co. Instead, it’s as if you were never even linked to in the first place!
The reference to money is just to emphasize that they are entirely powered by the community. In terms of hosting fees, event expenses, and staff wages, that cash comes from the community. The content comes from the community, and the research articles and extended reading also come from the community.
In other words, Wikipedia is nothing without the community, and as such, it has no right to abuse the community’s kindness and help in such a way.
You want a link back for your link forward? You might as well wanted cash for your cash, and also, you might as well be obliged to write an article for reading one. Do unto others…
Tho I understand your point of view, I see it differently. I believe that what we get and what we should expect to get from wikipedia is not SEO, but knowledge.
However, – without reading Jimmy Wales’ opinion on the subject – I don’t understand their way of thinking.
It is really great that you are using nofollow on your blog as well.
Wikipedia insteading of attacking the source, has gone and attacked the symptom. I wonder how many spammers will stop spamming because of this!
Wikipedia is still a good project and has lots of useful information.
I don’t doubt that. I encourage linking to Wikipedia to share the knowledge – just masking those links from Google & Co. with no-follow the same as they have.
I so agree with you. The use of rel=nofollow is not right.
Wikipedia is a rollercoaster about ten feet over the top: It’s going nowhere but DOWN. Right now, it’s not accelerating down particularly fast, and you may not even be noticing it yet. But give it another year, and it will be completely obvious to everyone on earth.
It has sacrificed the premise of truth for the premise of “concensus” (but there are ways around that, too, if you’re “made”). Thinly-veiled propagandists pretty much own all remotely politicized topics, and the taint can only spread.
I think I’ll start boycotting them too. In fact, I’ll start redistributing their works and linking to the redistributions instead! lol.
Maybe someone will pay me for my content like Answers.com pays Wikpedia for theirs!
“…Wikipedia and Answers.com will split advertising revenue from the Answers.com website from users utilizing the software. This is expected to commence in January 2006, starting with a 60-day trial period.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2005-10-24/Answers.com_partnership
hahahahaha
Seriously, they’ve seemed comparable to nazi’s. “You can not do this! Only we can do this! We are all that is good and all who are not with us will be punished!”
It’s quite funny. We posted this almost a full year ago – it took that long for the truth to come out.
Just yesterday, Jimmy Wales and his crew were outed for their secret mailing list used, amongst other things, to plot against their own contributors: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/04/0333252
The signs have been there for all to see for quite a while now… it’s about time people realized what’s really happening!
And on a similar note: http://neosmart.net/blog/2007/wikias-outrageous-exploitation-of-the-human-race/
Same thing, same people behind it, just a different name.
Wikipedia is a rollercoaster about ten feet over the top: It’s going nowhere but DOWN. Right now, it’s not accelerating down particularly fast, and you may not even be noticing it yet. But give it another year, and it will be completely obvious to everyone on earth.
Well it’s more than a year later, and wikipedia is still going strong. How confident are you of your claims?
I don’t agree with you completely. Wikipedia was dofollow and was attacked by millions of spammers,however they will turn do follow on for some trusted editors links. Wikipedia is giving back to the community something that you couldn’t find anywhere else,tons of content,useful and quality content,of course provided by volunteers but still they have to check if that content is good.
For me Wikipedia remains in top five best websites ever made.