Skip to content
Gravity Search Marketing
  • Why Gravity
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Contact Us

Ask the Experts: Should My Business Make a Wikipedia…

  • March 5, 2014
  • by Gradiva Couzin

Q: I recently noticed that a competitor of ours has a page on Wikipedia for their business. How can I get one for myself? Will it help my ranks?

A: Some of our clients have asked if a Wikipedia page for their product or brand can improve their website ranks.

Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia containing over 30 million articles on a wide variety of topics. A Wikipedia page will not directly improve your site’s ranks. The links on Wikipedia that point to your website are tagged with “nofollow,” which means that Google won’t transfer any link authority from Wikipedia to a your website.

Despite this, a Wikipedia page for your business or brand can still be beneficial in other ways:

  • A Wikipedia page can rank well in search results alongside your site and your other branded properties. As such, a Wikipedia page can be a nice way to influence more of the search results than you would have without the page.
  • Wikipedia pages may help with brand awareness. Wikipedia is a top website and receives billions of page views each month. It’s possible that some Wikipedia users may naturally stumble upon your Wikipedia page, or find it via a link from other Wikipedia pages on similar topics.
  • Google uses Wikipedia as a source for its “artificial intelligence” projects and currently draws summary information from Wikipedia to produce its Google Knowledge Graph listings. If your product has a Google Knowledge Graph, you may be able to influence the content via your Wikipedia page.

Any company is technically eligible to have a Wikipedia page. However, the best Wikipedia pages cite third-party information sources, such as online newspapers, magazines, trade publications or reputable published authors. If there is already published information about your company readily available online, you’re ready for a Wikipedia page.

If you lack third-party articles about your company, consider increasing your public relations efforts first. You may wish to create a press kit or press release and reach out to a writer or the editor of a local news website in your community. After your first third-party interview or article is published online, you are ready for a Wikipedia page. If you only have one or two published articles about your company, consider a somewhat brief Wikipedia page as a start. You can build up your Wikipedia page content over time, revisiting the Wikipedia page at any time and increasing its content as subsequent media articles are published about your company.

When you are ready, here are some tips for creating a good Wikipedia page about your business.

Tip 1: Article Layout

It’s important to select an article layout template that meets established Wikipedia standards. We recommend finding existing articles on Wikipedia that contain similar content to your new article. You may want to base your article’s layout on a layout of an existing article.

Tip 2: Avoid Self-Promotion

It is important to maintain an impartial, fact-based tone in a Wikipedia article. We recommend avoiding the use of excessive or enthusiastic adjectives and self-promotional language. When an article contains any self-promotion, it can be flagged for removal.

Tip 3: Explain Industry Jargon

Ideally, the article should be understandable for anyone, even industry outsiders. We recommend avoiding abbreviations with which industry outsiders might be unfamiliar. For example, instead of writing about “SEO,” we would recommend writing about “search engine optimization (SEO)” and linking this text to a Wikipedia article on this topic, for those who want to learn more.

Tip 4: Link to Other Articles

A good Wikipedia article links to other articles. For example, a Microsoft article links to related Wikipedia articles about software, computing, video games and more. As a rule of thumb, we recommend linking to other articles at least once in each paragraph.

Tip 5: Add Citations & References

A good Wikipedia article includes a citation or reference for each claim stated in the article that could possibly be challenged. Ideally, citations & references should come from reliable, third party sources such as news/media. A poor reference source would be an article from your own website or blog, because it is not third-party.

Tip 6: Disambiguation

Some Wikipedia articles share the same name but are about unique topics. In order to distinguish between these articles, disambiguation is added to the titles. For example, Wikipedia has at least 10 articles entitled “John Smith.” As such, article authors add disambiguation in parentheses after the initial title:

“John Smith (explorer)”
“John Smith (actor)”
“John Smith (wrestler)”

If your company or product name shares its name with others, we recommend use of disambiguation in your article’s title.

Tip 7: Disclosure

As of February 2014, Wikipedia is considering a paid disclosure policy, in which editors would need to disclose if they are making Wikipedia edits as part of a paid arrangement. If enacted, the disclosure policy would require a paid editor to make a public statement, such as “I work for [company name] and make edits on its behalf” on the editor’s talk page or on edit summaries. (Talk pages are designed to allow Wikipedia editors to talk and leave messages, while edit summaries are designed to help editors understand what has changed on a Wikipedia page.)

Wikipedia encourages all editors to adhere to certain standards, including maintaining a neutral point of view without bias or use of any marketing language (see Tip 2). The disclosure policy is intended to encourage paid editors to meet these standards and avoid possible conflicts of interest. This policy may or may not be enacted, but its discussion highlights Wikipedia’s commitment to impartial information. We encourage all editors to adhere to Wikipedia’s guidelines. Learn more about the Wikipedia disclosure policy.

Tip 8: Adoption

If you are an editor creating a Wikipedia page for the first time, you may wish to consider participating in Wikipedia’s “Adopt a User program,” in which experienced editors will mentor new users in an effort to help them become more familiar with Wikipedia.

If you need additional advice about a potential Wikipedia page,  read up on some advice from  Wikipedia:  Wikipedia: Writing better articles.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Tracking Encrypted Yahoo Search with Google Analytics
7 Deadly Sins of Responding to Negative Reviews
5 COMMENTS
  • Entities, AuthorRank, and Social Signals. The State of Search - Hat Rack Media
    January 27, 2014 at 8:01 pm

    […] you and your business, the better.  Gradiva Couzin has written an in-depth article showing the best practices for getting into Wikipedia. But for our discussion we will only address the main sticking point brought up in her article. You […]

  • Patti Ryan
    April 5, 2014 at 4:56 pm

    Thank for the tips about if you don’t have a lot of third-party published articles. And to start with a short Wikipedia page.

    I don’t know if we have enough to start a Wikipedia page. We have some industry recognition (awards), a published book available at Amazon.com with over 40 customer reviews. And a non-profit, patient education website (for over 12 years with 20K+ hits a month) with links to us from leaders in the industry.
    Do online-only third-party articles carry weight? How about being interviewed on internet radio and cable TV shows? How about articles you authored that have been published by an industry-leading website?
    Do all these add up to enough to start a modest Wikipedia brand page?
    I value your opinion.
    Patti Ryan
    A-Fib.com

    Publisher of ‘Beat Your A-Fib: The Essential Guide to Finding Your Cure” by Steve S. Ryan, PhD

  • Kevin Stirtz
    June 18, 2014 at 9:25 pm

    Hi Gradiva – While I agree that businesses should focus on getting third-party (earned media) articles, they should never create their own page in Wikipedia. Doing so creates a conflict of interest that is against their policies. Also, a company or person needs to be “noteworthy” to have a page on Wikipedia. While the definition of “noteworthy” might be subjective, it does mean that a business needs to meet a certain standard to be included in Wikipedia. It’s not a place to simply create a page for yourself or your business.

    1. Gradiva Couzin
      October 28, 2015 at 9:22 am

      hi Kevin,
      Thanks for your comment! I believe that as long as a business owner (or other staff) discloses the relationship in their Wikipedia profile, they are within Wikipedia’s guidelines to create a page for the business. If that’s not the case, can you post a link with that info? I would love to share with our readers.
      Best,
      Gradiva

  • Nancy
    October 28, 2015 at 6:42 am

    Our wikipedia article gets removed, need help.

Comments are closed.

Who We Are
Gravity Search Marketing was formed in 2006 as a partnership between Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin. Gravity’s clients include Fortune 500 companies, global entertainment brands, niche B2Bs, large and small retailers, and non-profits.
As SEO industry veterans, Couzin and Grappone co-wrote Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day (Wiley, 2006, 2008, 2011) and Five Stars: Putting Online Reviews to Work for Your Business (Wiley, 2014), and enjoy sharing their expertise in speaking engagements and press interviews. 
Gravity's small, talented team has expertise in analytics, paid search, social media and technical SEO. Gravity team members are located throughout California, in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Get in Touch

Get An Effective SEO Strategy

Most of our business comes through word of mouth from happy customers. We work with clients who have what it takes to make the project a success: intelligence, openness to new ideas, a commitment to communicating with us regularly, and a workflow that allows us to work with you effectively.

Contact Us
  • Home
  • Why Gravity is Different
  • Services
  • Blog
  • Books We’ve Written
  • Contact Us

Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB)

Gravity is an SBA-Certified WOSB

NAICS Codes:

  • 541613 Marketing Consulting Services
  • 541810 Advertising Agencies
  • 541820 Public relations agencies
  • 541990 Other Professional Services
  • 611430 Professional and Management Training
Gravity Search Marketing LLC - A Full-Service SEO Company
Los Angeles • San Francisco
Copyright © 2020 All Rights Reserved
Theme by Colorlib Powered by WordPress