Links from Wikipedia, like any high ranking website, can significantly help with your SEO, however, there are many cautionary notes you need to beware of, so let’s get a better understanding of this subject.
If you have been approached by people who claim they can create a Wikipedia page for your business, then you need to read this article before you part with your money.
What is Wikipedia?
This may sound like a silly question, but in order to understand the issues around links from Wikipedia, we need to fully understand the nature of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia, providing high quality information on wide range of subjects. Information on Wikipedia is verifiable and from credible sources, otherwise moderators and editors will remove the content or links.
This has made Wikipedia a highly trusted source of information, which even Google relies on when it is trying to answer questions. The ranking authority for Wikipedia website is 100 out of 100, so obtaining a link from Wikipedia’s website is highly prized.
Wikipedia’s rules prohibit use of the website as a marketing and commercial tool, which means any such links will be removed.
What is Website Authority Ranking?
This is the value Google assigns to a website that indicates how trusted they are by Google. The higher the number, the higher the trust level, which means a link from high authority websites will have high impact on the website that the link directs the visitors to. Click here to read more about off-page SEO.
What is the significance of Links?
There are many SEO signals that determine a website’s overall ranking in Google’s Search Results Page (SERP). Amongst them are the number, quality, and relevance of the links coming from 3rd party websites.
How these contribute to your website’s ranking are as following:
- Numbers – Each link is considered as a vote, hence more links means more impact. However, these links have to be from High Authority websites and must be relevant to your subject matter (see below)
- Authority – A link from a high authority website is worth more than a link from a low ranking website, so numbers are only part of the calculation. In essence, it is better to have lower number of links but from higher authority websites.
- Relevance – The content of the website linking to you must be relevant to your website and your sector. This means a link from a restaurant to a hospital is not relevant so not as valuable, but a link from a restaurant to a bar is relevant and more valuable. This means if the subject matter of the page is not relevant to your sector, or the website content is not relevant to your website sector, then there is little value in the link.
How does a link from Wikipedia help?
Wikipedia is a highly trusted website with high authority, so that is not in dispute, however, the value of the link to your website depends on the content of the page within Wikipedia. Just as “Relevance” above, if the content of the page in Wikipedia is not relevant to your website sector, then it has a zero or lower value.
Random links on random pages of Wikipedia to random websites will be removed very quickly, as links are validated manually and are removed if they are not a reliable source and/or are not relevant to the subject matter.
Someone has offered to create my own Wikipedia page for me!
Yes, this is the latest trend in getting people to part with their money, hoping to get a valuable link.
It is possible to create a company page, or a personal page, on Wikipedia; however the moderators can decide to remove the page, or any links within the page, if they judge the page or the link does not add value or contribute to the knowledge base. Pages can be removed if moderators or editors judge the page to be an attempt to advertising.
There is no guarantee that your page, or your links will survive over time, even if they appear on Wikipedia on day one.
Should I create a page for my business on Wikipedia?
Whilst there is no harm in doing so, it is unlikely that the page will survive the moderators’ or editors’ scrutiny over time, unless you are a major company or brand.
Summary
Whilst it is indisputable that Wikipedia is high authority website, which can provide valuable SEO links, it is unlikely that your page or links would survive moderation.
Your time is best spent on identifying links in Wikipedia pages that are relevant to your business, and then try to gain links from the targets of those links. Those websites are not generally edited by moderators or editors, and can provide you with valuable traffic as well as high quality links.