Does It Matter That Wikipedia Made Its Links NoFollow?
Carsten Cumbrowski over at Search Engine Journal picked up that Wikipedia is now tagging all their links with "NoFollow". Apparently this is an official decision by Wikipedia's CEO, Jim Wales. I think that is a decision that will eventually lessen the spamming of Wikipedia by those who are gaming it to gain page rank.
However, what if the gaming for page rank isn't the objective? What if it is just to get the link into the article, to get the eyeballs to see it and the fingers to click on it and drive that traffic in? The NoFollow attribute won't mean a thing there.
Also, the NoFollow doesn't mean that the spiders from the search engines won't go to those sites, it just means that Wikipedia isn't giving its "trust" to the link. Although I applaud Wikipedia's steps with the NoFollow, they are still similar to Digg in the aspect that a link from a popular Wikipedia page, means traffic to the website the link is pointing to. There are times where the objective isn't Page Rank at all, it's strictly to drive traffic.
Anything that is community driven always leaves the element of "being gamed" whether its from aggressive marketers, programmers or even from within the community's own walls. We are human, we just want to "belong" and be noted as "important", and that's the lure of being on Digg or Wikipedia. That is something that I don't think Wikipedia's Jim Wales can solve through tagging.
I get a good share of traffic from Wikkiepedia and that's what I want but the link love doesn't hurt. I'll have to watch and see how this might change things.
Posted by: David Temple | January 22, 2007 at 11:33 AM
David,
the link love will come back, with or without nofollow. I am almost 100% sure that this is going to happen.
And you got it right, the interested visitor traffic that is referenced from Wikipedia to your site is not going away. And that traffic is actually of good quality.
not getting the love for a while will not kill you. It's for the greater good. You might be able to make a Tax Write off hehe.
Posted by: Carsten Cumbrowski | January 22, 2007 at 07:44 PM
It's true that the visitors will still flow freely and that the traffic will be good and qualified. I think the end problem would be the ongoing results from a search engine standpoint. Someone with a site that large and that powerful turned from a 2 way street of search engine relevancy to a siphon. That's a large shift in weight.
Posted by: smoMashup | January 23, 2007 at 11:08 AM
yeah… those stupid wiki’s!
wonder what happen if we all use nofollow to them?
Have a good one.
Posted by: SEO | July 22, 2007 at 04:08 AM