Google Accounts For 24% Of All Wikipedia Traffic

June 14th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

According to Wikipedia’s traffic logs, Google accounts for 24% of Wikipedia’s traffic. A big number, but I actually expected it to be higher. Given that Wikipedia appears to be able to survive without Google’s traffic, do you think it’s time Google removed or gave less precedence to Wikipedia’s results?

Don’t get me wrong, I think Wikipedia is a great source of information. But, it is frustrating that for nearly everything I search for, the Wikipedia page comes out top even if the content on the page isn’t great or isn’t even appropriate. I just think that the range of topics that Wikipedia covers means that it shouldn’t be indexed, as I don’t see the point of a destination site indexing another one.

I’m also still upset about Wikipedia’s decision to not give credit to sites it links to, even though it has got to where it is today thanks to the millions of sites that link to it.

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Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University, and currently runs the Portal and online operations for one of the largest ISPs in the UK.

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There Are 7 Responses So Far. »

  1. 1

    Comment by Jamdo on 14 June 2007:

    Following the ethos that 20 idiots does not equal an expert, I think as Google’s algorythm gets better and better at detecting quality info as opposed to info that happens to suit Google’s current flawed algorythm, wikipedia will slip further down the results.

    Wikipedia is great, and it’s community and it’s all very web 2.0 blah blah blah, but in specific areas there are plenty of sites with better quality of information that rank lower on the relevant keywords.

  2. 2

    Comment by John on 14 June 2007:

    I agree it’s a shame they nofollow links as it does mess with the linking structure of the web and many of the links are relevant and useful.

  3. 3

    Comment by Ceglie Messapica on 14 June 2007:

    Besides Wikipedia has external links with rel=nofollow that is against Internet filosofy.

  4. 4

    Comment by listikal on 14 June 2007:

    24% is a huge surprise to me. It doesn’t really bother me that it’s results come up every time. I typically end up checking it first anyway.

  5. 5

    Comment by Jamdo on 15 June 2007:

    listikal - yeah, it depends what you are searching though. If you are looking for the history of tennis, or something general interest, then wikipedia is probably fine. If you are looking to find the state of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, which type of reactors they have and an intelligent assessment of the real threat, then fas.org or globalsecurity.com (for example) should be coming up a lot higher in the results and wikipedia should be NOWHERE near the top of your keywords search IMHO.

  6. 6

    Comment by horisly on 15 June 2007:

    agree with your point.
    “the Wikipedia page comes out top even if the content on the page isn’t great or isn’t even appropriate. ”
    google is giving to much emphases to wikipedia. that is unfair to other site.

  7. 7

    Comment by mv3gp on 15 June 2007:

    I think WikiPedia results should be kept different. i think the information resource on wikipedia should have another category just like groups, web, images

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