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RSSWhile Time looked at the trend of consumer acceptance of these new Internet vehicles, their impact has been both positive and negative. Some of their greatest influence lies in their effect on organic search results. No Web site epitomizes this better than Wikipedia. Try this: Go to your favorite search engine, be it Google, MSN, Yahoo, or Ask, and choose several one- or two-word searches at random. Once complete, I'll dare to guess that Wikipedia will have appeared on the first page of results for the majority of those searches.
I hope these results have startled you. Across every search engine today, Wikipedia stands tall as the authority on just about every subject matter underneath the sun. Whether you are in need of the definition of a word, a biography of a famous person, or you simply wish to determine the origin of something, Wikipedia stands out on search engines as a credible authority, regardless of the subject.
Wikipedia deserves kudos all around for an unbelievable business idea and for its rousing success in gaining search engine visibility. Its success at showing up so frequently on all fronts demonstrates the weakness that lies in search engines' algorithms that has perhaps rendered them obsolete. The shortcoming particularly lies in the overreaching importance given to link popularity. Wikipedia shows up in results so consistently due to the millions of internal and external links that it has generated across the Web. While search engine algorithms take this as a vote that the material on the page has substance, this is truly a "subjective" take, which is given "objective" weight in the algorithm. Obviously, Wikipedia cannot be the authority on everything. It simply shows up because it has tens of millions of links that suggest to computer algorithms that it is an expert, without further evaluation of this claim.
The question now lies in what this means to us as searchers. We can easily infer that if we keep getting non-relevant results, our interaction with organic results could plummet. This poses some interesting concerns:
Will search users begin interacting with and relying on sponsored listings for relevancy more frequently?
Will search engines run the risk of user abandonment due to irrelevant search engine query results?
Will the growth of general search engines be stunted, and will we subsequently see a shift to vertical search engines?
The next generation of search has arrived. Wikipedia has pioneered a new trend and will likely be boldly followed into the final frontier. Indeed, 2007 will be an interesting year as we watch how the first-tier search engines deal with this significant risk to their business models. The algorithms have been figured out -- and the emperor suddenly has no clothes.
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There must be some real discomfort that a purely non-commercial vehicle like Wikipedia can quickly absorb so much traffic. At this level it disrupts commercial portals and even search itself.
For example. I'm interested in a new subject. I often go FIRST to Wikipedia to take advantage of the social filtering that grows organically there. Wisdom of crowds notwithstanding, I can apply my own 'filter' and choose what's relevant quickly, including jump-off to pre-screened destinations that have the subject 'authority' I seek. This is tremendously useful to me every day.
Brute force search just doesn't compete with this.
Bruce Edwards, CEO bruce.edwards@kmAgent.com
For those that think Wikipedia is ALWAYS relevant, the proof is in the data, not our opinions. People in the industry that know understand data is what drives me, not baseless opinion.
The data I am referring to comes from Hitwise, whose Search Term Analysis tool consistently shows that Wikipedia is NOT as heavily clicked on by users as you may think. Despite its high positions, lower positioned organic and paid search ads get more search result click activity. The data from Hitwise shows that the average search engine user is finding Wikipedia to be less relevant than other listings and choosing not to interact with their listings at an expected rate.
I encourage all that have a Hitwise license to take a look for themselves, as I found over and over that search results users passed on Wikipedia results and their "click index" was far below typical click rates for listings in those spots.
We in the industry have different views on how we use the internet and particularly search. Its recommended to look through the eyes of a typical web user, not the sub-segment of search crazies like us.
I wouldn't consider a library search to be faulty if for a general query it returned an encyclopedic entry giving me more information on a generic term. And if I do a more advanced and complex search on an engine, Wikipedia is no where to be found.
And generally, when a wikipedia entry comes up for natural search, it does have a good deal of relevant information. There are wikipedia entries that don't have much info, but those don't generate much traffic and don't appear high in search results. And by the nature of wikipedia, highly trafficked pages are quite likely to have quality content by the very nature of their view count.
I'm not sure where exactly you see the problem with wikipedia's dominance in natural search.
This is not an example of the search engine algo being broken.
Now, when I try a search and come up with sites that offer nothing besides google ads linking to other sites, or a site that has three lines of content peeking out from under rich media ads, then I get peeved, but I have seldom been disappointed at being directed to the information contained in Wikipedia.
If you think about the search engines delivering information that you are looking for and not as a giant shopping directory, your argument is comical.
Most Internet users are looking for information - and a search for information on lung cancer should not lead to drug companies, law firms or anyone else trying to sell something. If the search actually turns up a site with good information instead of a site pushing a product - the search engine algo is working...not broken.
You need to occasionally take your advertiser blinders off in order to understand the market that you serve. You missed the point here.
Chuck Ruggiero VP, Marketing eStudentNation
if QUERY and WICKEPEDIA TOPIC MATCH then display WICKEPEDIA PAGE @ RANDOMIZE POSITION 1 TO POSITION 5 else GOFISH and display ADWORDS @ topofpage in POSITION 1 to 5
Ken Dickens 2080ideas.com
The ironic thing is that the ultimate "long tail site" is consistently served up in the head of search.