I have been asked about this a few times, so I am going to try and clear the air as best I can.
For some time, a number of clever web 2 marketers have been sneaking “External Links” in over at Wikipedia in categories related to their keywords.
Ok. I can sense a few blank faces so I will explain…
Google ranks your site based largely on the authority and quality of the sites that link to you. This means that if WordPress.com links to you, and Google does consider WordPress.com to be an authority site, that value is passed on to your site when Google ranks you, and when they determine your Google Pagerank.
Since Wikipedia is clearly seen by Google as an authority site on literally thousands of subjects, getting a link from wiki to your site would be a good thing, no? Let’s explore this a little more deeply…
Many of the Wikipedia category pages and result pages are ranked by Google as PR 5 or even 6 in some cases. A free PR 5 or PR 6 link to your site certainly wouldn’t hurt would it?
But wait…before you knock yourself out chasing links from Wikipedia you should keep one thing in mind…
Wikipedia uses strictly “nofollow” links.
Now, this does not mean that a link from wiki to your site is not a good thing, it just means that Google does not credit your site with any of the “good stuff” that would normally have been carried to your site if Wikipedia was NOT “nofollow”, that’s all.
IMHO, a link from them must have more value than no link at all, mustn’t it?
If this kind of pursuit interests you, have a look at the video below where I linked a Wikipedia PR6 page to my affiliate program directory site called “WhichAffiliate.com”
Cheers,
Ron
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