February 21, 2007 | Wednesday

London Office: 55 New Oxford Street, London, WC1A 1BS, UK / Tel: 020 7952 8000 / Fax: 020 7952 8001
Cheshire Office: Mandarin Court, Warrington, Cheshire, WA1 1GG, England UK / Tel: 01925 413513 / Fax: 01925 420118

Google and Wikipedia

By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in Search Engines |Google |Search Research

Ever notice how, when you do a Google search for, oh, lots of people and subjects, the Wikipedia result for that search phrase is often very near the top of the SERPs? Yeah, so did Google.

The percentage of Google’s downstream traffic going to Wikipedia increased by 166% year over year (week ending 2/10/07 vs. week ending 2/11/06). Last week Wikipedia was the #3 website in Google’s downstream, after Google Image Search and MySpace.

Here’s where we start taking bets on whether or not Wikipedia will start running Google AdWords. Here’s what founder Jimbo Wales had to say in October about the prospect of advertising on Wikipedia, from his blog:

My position on ads in Wikipedia was and is the same as it has ever been. The decision needs to come from the community, and not from me. I am personally opposed to advertising in Wikipedia, but we need to make the decision to turn down ads in a responsible and serious manner. The amount of money that could be made is significant and growing all the time, and the money could be used to do significant good in the world. No question about that...There is nothing inherently wrong with advertising. But it is not right for Wikipedia.