Ezra Klein: Wikipedia Goes Evil

« Ruth Marcus's Cloud Castle | Main | Yikes »

January 24, 2007

Wikipedia Goes Evil

All links on Wikipedia now automatically use the "nofollow" attribute, which means that when Google crawls the site, none of the links it comes across get any PageRank from appearing on Wikipedia. SEO contest concerns aside, this also has the effect of consolidating Wikipedia's power. Now it gets all the Google juice and doesn't pass any of it along to the sources from which it gets information. Links are currency on the web and Wikipedia just stopped paying it forward, so to speak.

Though, to be honest, Wikipedia could steal my girl, key my car, and salt my lawn -- and I'd still think I'm getting the better end of the deal.

January 24, 2007 | Permalink

Comments

One can say that the costs outweigh the benefits here but this is a clear case of an anti-spam measure with downsides rather than "evil".

Kottke's comment that "It's too hard for spammers to filter out which sites use nofollow and which do not and much easier & cheaper just to spam everyone and everywhere." is pretty silly. Does it even need to be said that Wikipedia is not just another website?

Posted by: Victor Freeh | Jan 24, 2007 1:11:09 PM

You're young. You're probably a renter, in the city, without a lawn. You probably wouldn't notice for weeks if somebody keyed your car, if you even own one. That leaves the girl. Wikipedia over the girl. Blech.

Posted by: ostap | Jan 24, 2007 1:17:00 PM

There seems to be some reasonable rationale to the nofollow change. After all, if you are a source in a website that's basically a reference material, you are probably already popular. You don't need that popularity compounded.

Posted by: Nicholas Beaudrot | Jan 24, 2007 2:13:07 PM

After all, if you are a source in a website that's basically a reference material, you are probably already popular. You don't need that popularity compounded.

Define "popular". I think that even if you run the definite internet resource for 11th-century cavalry battles, you could probably use a hand.

Posted by: scarshapedstar | Jan 24, 2007 2:54:08 PM

I duno. I've got the definitive site for 10-century bar brawling *and* bear-baiting, and I can't get no satisfaction.

Posted by: Barry | Jan 24, 2007 4:17:47 PM

>Though, to be honest, Wikipedia could steal my girl, key my car, and salt my lawn -- and I'd still think I'm getting the better end of the deal.

How does your girl feel about this?

Posted by: Gar Lipow | Jan 24, 2007 6:09:39 PM

How I wish all sites implement nofollow so Google will change their mind.

Posted by: Alfredo | Jan 24, 2007 6:20:11 PM

Victor, I agree, Kottke's comment makes no sense. Adding spam links to Wikipedia is a specialized technique - and spammers have no incentive to use significant processing time targeting a site that they know won't do them any good.

Kottke has a slightly better point later on when he says that the spammers might still be hoping for the links to show up on mirror sites that use Wikipedia content, if the mirrors don't bother to use "nofollow". But that's no reason for Wikipedia not to do this, and WP is a much bigger source of Google mojo than any of the other mirrors are.

Scarshapedstar: If everyone who searches for 11th-century cavalry battles ends up reading a Wikipedia page that includes a prominent link to your site, how much more of a hand do you want?? I run two websites whose traffic and Google ranking both went way up after being linked (appropriately) on WP pages and other reference sites... but when I look at where the traffic is coming from, a good deal of it is from those links themselves, not from Google searches.

Ezra & Kottke are also a little confused about where WP gets its content. It's not supposed to just summarize websites; web references are considered a distant second to printed ones. Articles can also list "external links" which may be of interest to a reader, but that doesn't mean the article's content is from those links.

Posted by: Hob | Jan 24, 2007 10:54:07 PM

I really wish more people used nofollow. It's a pity more people aren't as evil as wikipedia and Ezra (at least for comments).

Posted by: Mike | Jan 24, 2007 11:53:52 PM

>Though, to be honest, Wikipedia could steal my girl, key my car, and salt my lawn -- and I'd still think I'm getting the better end of the deal.

How does your girl feel about this?

The girl is now getting some Wikibooty. I think she's just fine.

Posted by: Isabel | Jan 28, 2007 8:46:28 PM

托盘
 托盘
 钢托盘
 钢制托盘
 塑料托盘
 木托盘
 木制托盘
 纸托盘
 木塑托盘