Wikipedia, SEO and Reputation Management

William Beutler SEO Reputation Management Wikipedia (but not necessarily in that order) January 23, 2009

What Wikipedia Really Is

The misleading PR speak:

“ the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit.”

The behind-the-scenes description:

“ a neutral and unbiased compilation of

previously written, verifiable facts.”

The best way to think of it:

a very popular and useful but

unreliable, insular and

complex reference

website.

Don’t Try This at Work

Unless, of course, you create an account.

The Left is Way Ahead

On Wikipedia, it’s not even close

Great Not Great Terrible

Learn the Policies and Guidelines

Approx. 50 policies, 150+ site guidelines

Three Wikipedia Content Rules

No Original Research: Have citations for everything – or it probably won’t stick.

Verifiability: Those citations must be high quality – no blogs (usually).

Neutral Point of View: No press release language or marketing-speak allowed.

Getting Started: Resources

First Things First

Tutorial WP:TUTOR

Cheatsheet WP:CHEAT

Going In-Depth

Policies WP:LOP

Guidelines WP:LOGL

Manual of Style WP:MOS

Citation Templates WP:CITET

Conflict of Interest WP:COI

What is Conflict of Interest?

“ Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest

Dealing With Disclosure

Full Disclosure

Acknowledges organizational interest

Honesty is the best policy

But also exposes client, you to criticism

Non-Disclosure

Complete anonymity = more freedom

Shields client, you from criticism

Probably runs afoul of WP:COI

Partial Disclosure

Acknowledges affiliation/support, but no more

Fully Disclosed Successes New Media Strategies October 2007 Morning Light August 2008

Identifying Problems

What to look for: Warnings · Talk · History

Know the territory before jumping in

Things to Remember

You have no right to mandate the content of a Wikipedia article about you or a client

Policies and guidelines are (almost) everything

Uncited material can (almost) be removed at will

But removing well-covered negative information is strongly discouraged

True, blogs usually don’t count, unless they have editors. Think TPM, TechCrunch &c.

Search Engine Market Share

Source: Comscore

Their market share is dominant and still growing. Europe April 2008 “ Search engine” is a polite way of saying “Google” U.S. February 2008

You Can’t Push Bad Links Down

You can only push good ones up .

Which Links Matter? The 2 nd position gets 1/3 the clicks of the 1 st position. Only 1 in 10 click past the first page. At most , people will go through 3 pages of results before giving up.

iProspect, April 2006

All About Content, August 2008

Use SEO-Friendly URLs

BAD

http://www.example.com/

?p=250

BETTER

http://www.example.com/

put-keywords-in-headlines

BEST

http://example.com/2008/03/05/

including-date-also-equals-seo-win

Google: Atlantic + Bowden + Wire http://www.the atlantic .com / doc/200801/ bowden - wire

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

Roughly, in order of importance:

Don’t Forget SEO for YouTube Descriptive video titles Tag, tag, tag, tag Use keywords in titles Don’t forget to set the Categories, Date and Location. Allowing comments is up to you, but DO allow embedding.

Answer Stories About You

C’mon, do it for the journos

Comment on Google News stories about your client, candidate, or company

SEM = Search Engine Marketing How to remember the difference: AdSense earns you SENSE (cents). AdWords puts your WORDS on someone else’s page. AdSense is for “publishers” i.e. bloggers and webmasters. AdWords are for advertisers. Advertising of this type is called PPC. You only pay (or get paid) when someone clicks.

Buy Your Rivals’ Keywords