Google not indexing Wikisource for last few years now. - Wikimedia-l

James Heilman

1 Aug 1 Aug

9:13 a.m.

Am having the same issue with Google poorly indexing MDWiki.org. I have personally switched my default browser to duckduckgo as they index much better. The two folks at Google who used to support their collaborations with Wikipedia are no longer with the company. Not sure if they have been replaced by anyone. James On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 12:51 AM Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hello all, Apologies for cross-posting. For those who have not noticed till now, Google is not indexing any Wikisource language editions for the last couple of years which practically means that any Wikisource contents in any languages, which are being created in these years, are not searchable on Google and hence largely remain invisible on the web. This is an extremely demotivating and frustrating situation for the existing Wikisource volunteers to witness, draining away all of our past and current efforts to bring and retain viewers, readers, GLAM partners and any potential new editors. We already have a very low awareness and visibility about Wikisource among general internet users due to lack of organized support in these years but the invisibility on Google search engine could become the last nail in our coffin, unless it is fixed soon. There is a phabricator ticket raised by Darwinius back in December 2022 - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607. Can't this issue be put into priority by sys admins and WMF to work upon? Wikisource is still a sister project of Wikimedia and it needs some very basic care, after all. Regards, Bodhisattwa (Bengali Wikisource volunteer) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian

Reply

Bodhisattwa

23 Aug 23 Aug

1:07 a.m.

Hi, The sessions at Google headquarters in Singapore were designed in a way that there was no option to sit together and discuss this grave issue with Google's Search team. I guess, the slim opportunity for the Wikisource volunteers to discuss the issue directly with Google was unfortunately lost. Now it is totally up to WMF and sysadmins to take it up and figure it out themselves with Google. Regards, Bodhisattwa On Tue, Aug 1, 2023, 14:48 Butch Bustria <bustrias(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hi Everyone, I think this is a good opportunity to discuss with Google's Search Team here in Singapore in 2 weeks time. You can register at Wikimania pre-Conference at this link: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2023:Related_events/Mind_The_Gap Kind regards, Butch On Tue, Aug 1, 2023, 5:13 PM James Heilman <jmh649(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Am having the same issue with Google poorly indexing MDWiki.org. I have personally switched my default browser to duckduckgo as they index much better. The two folks at Google who used to support their collaborations with Wikipedia are no longer with the company. Not sure if they have been replaced by anyone. James On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 12:51 AM Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hello all, Apologies for cross-posting. For those who have not noticed till now, Google is not indexing any Wikisource language editions for the last couple of years which practically means that any Wikisource contents in any languages, which are being created in these years, are not searchable on Google and hence largely remain invisible on the web. This is an extremely demotivating and frustrating situation for the existing Wikisource volunteers to witness, draining away all of our past and current efforts to bring and retain viewers, readers, GLAM partners and any potential new editors. We already have a very low awareness and visibility about Wikisource among general internet users due to lack of organized support in these years but the invisibility on Google search engine could become the last nail in our coffin, unless it is fixed soon. There is a phabricator ticket raised by Darwinius back in December 2022 - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607. Can't this issue be put into priority by sys admins and WMF to work upon? Wikisource is still a sister project of Wikimedia and it needs some very basic care, after all. Regards, Bodhisattwa (Bengali Wikisource volunteer) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

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Reply

Nanour Garabedian

7:01 a.m.

+1 to this. I suggest adding what you indicated to the agenda of the next Wikisource Community meeting to request it formally from WMF on behalf of the user group. Best, NANöR On Wed, Aug 23, 2023 at 3:08 AM Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hi, The sessions at Google headquarters in Singapore were designed in a way that there was no option to sit together and discuss this grave issue with Google's Search team. I guess, the slim opportunity for the Wikisource volunteers to discuss the issue directly with Google was unfortunately lost. Now it is totally up to WMF and sysadmins to take it up and figure it out themselves with Google. Regards, Bodhisattwa On Tue, Aug 1, 2023, 14:48 Butch Bustria <bustrias(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Everyone, I think this is a good opportunity to discuss with Google's Search Team here in Singapore in 2 weeks time. You can register at Wikimania pre-Conference at this link: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2023:Related_events/Mind_The_Gap Kind regards, Butch On Tue, Aug 1, 2023, 5:13 PM James Heilman <jmh649(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Am having the same issue with Google poorly indexing MDWiki.org. I have personally switched my default browser to duckduckgo as they index much better. The two folks at Google who used to support their collaborations with Wikipedia are no longer with the company. Not sure if they have been replaced by anyone. James On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 12:51 AM Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hello all, Apologies for cross-posting. For those who have not noticed till now, Google is not indexing any Wikisource language editions for the last couple of years which practically means that any Wikisource contents in any languages, which are being created in these years, are not searchable on Google and hence largely remain invisible on the web. This is an extremely demotivating and frustrating situation for the existing Wikisource volunteers to witness, draining away all of our past and current efforts to bring and retain viewers, readers, GLAM partners and any potential new editors. We already have a very low awareness and visibility about Wikisource among general internet users due to lack of organized support in these years but the invisibility on Google search engine could become the last nail in our coffin, unless it is fixed soon. There is a phabricator ticket raised by Darwinius back in December 2022 - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607. Can't this issue be put into priority by sys admins and WMF to work upon? Wikisource is still a sister project of Wikimedia and it needs some very basic care, after all. Regards, Bodhisattwa (Bengali Wikisource volunteer) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

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Reply

Jorge Vargas

3:45 p.m.

Hi all, I am Jorge Vargas, Director of Partnerships at WMF. It was lovely to see many of you in person last week in Singapore! Hope you’re all doing well and energized after a week of celebration and learning, for those who were in person as well as online. As Nicholas Perry shared on August 3rd on this list <https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/324UY5XRHZO2HZCFGYMMHWVADGGLLQVS/>, we are already working with Google to get more information from their Indexing team to learn more about how this works on their side. As he also mentioned, we don’t have any influence or can decide what Google indexes or where Wikimedia content ranks in their search. Some potential solutions would also rely more on our platform than theirs. Additionally, the Google folks at the “Mind the Gap” event in their Singapore office were probably not the best suited to provide further information on this particular topic, something we shared with Butch and others before Wikimania. Several Google representatives attended the entire Wikimania conference to learn more about our Communities and Movement. Hopefully, some of you had an opportunity to talk to them then. We’ve seen for the last years Google's increasing interest in learning and working closer with us to be as aligned as possible. In this line, we are working with them to find the right people to get more guidance about how indexing works. This matter has not only been raised with them already regarding Wikisource but also regarding some language Wikipedias as well. I will share an update on this thread as soon as more information is available. In the meantime, feel free to contact me, Nicholas, or partnerships(a)wikimedia.org if we can clarify anything else. Best, Jorge On Wed, Aug 23, 2023 at 5:23 PM Paulo Santos Perneta < paulosperneta(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

For many months I have been extremely frustrated with Wikisource due to Google not indexing what is being added to it. I also suspect the problem may have to do with Ilario Valderi and Galder described, the gadget parafernalia under it, which seems to have got more complex by 2019 (I seem to recall this coincides with new developments by WMF devs dedicated team, namely concerning page organization, which may have been the culprit of this?) I'll experiment removing these complex gadgets and page framework from some pages at the Portuguese Wikisource to see if the situation improves. Best, Paulo Nanour Garabedian <garabedian.nanour.wiki(a)gmail.com> escreveu no dia quarta, 23/08/2023 à(s) 08:02:

+1 to this. I suggest adding what you indicated to the agenda of the next Wikisource Community meeting to request it formally from WMF on behalf of the user group. Best, NANöR On Wed, Aug 23, 2023 at 3:08 AM Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, The sessions at Google headquarters in Singapore were designed in a way that there was no option to sit together and discuss this grave issue with Google's Search team. I guess, the slim opportunity for the Wikisource volunteers to discuss the issue directly with Google was unfortunately lost. Now it is totally up to WMF and sysadmins to take it up and figure it out themselves with Google. Regards, Bodhisattwa On Tue, Aug 1, 2023, 14:48 Butch Bustria <bustrias(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Everyone, I think this is a good opportunity to discuss with Google's Search Team here in Singapore in 2 weeks time. You can register at Wikimania pre-Conference at this link: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2023:Related_events/Mind_The_Gap Kind regards, Butch On Tue, Aug 1, 2023, 5:13 PM James Heilman <jmh649(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Am having the same issue with Google poorly indexing MDWiki.org. I > have personally switched my default browser to duckduckgo as they index > much better. The two folks at Google who used to support their > collaborations with Wikipedia are no longer with the company. Not sure if > they have been replaced by anyone. > > James > > > On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 12:51 AM Bodhisattwa < > bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> Hello all, >> >> Apologies for cross-posting. >> >> For those who have not noticed till now, Google is not indexing any >> Wikisource language editions for the last couple of years which practically >> means that any Wikisource contents in any languages, which are being >> created in these years, are not searchable on Google and hence largely >> remain invisible on the web. >> >> This is an extremely demotivating and frustrating situation for the >> existing Wikisource volunteers to witness, draining away all of our past >> and current efforts to bring and retain viewers, readers, GLAM partners and >> any potential new editors. We already have a very low awareness and >> visibility about Wikisource among general internet users due to lack of >> organized support in these years but the invisibility on Google search >> engine could become the last nail in our coffin, unless it is fixed soon. >> >> There is a phabricator ticket raised by Darwinius back in December >> 2022 - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607. >> >> Can't this issue be put into priority by sys admins and WMF to work >> upon? Wikisource is still a sister project of Wikimedia and it needs some >> very basic care, after all. >> >> Regards, >> Bodhisattwa >> (Bengali Wikisource volunteer) >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, >> guidelines at: >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >> Public archives at >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… >> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org > > > > -- > James Heilman > MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, > guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… > To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

-- *Jorge Vargas* (he/him) Director of Partnerships Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> M: (+1) 415.404.9536 I work from San Francisco, USA. My time zone is PST: UTC/GMT -8.

Reply

Michael Snow

3:44 p.m.

I realize SEO has its own jargon, but to those not immersed in the field it is completely tautological to say a page is not indexed because "the indexing process determines that the page is unlikely to be requested in search." In an open-ended search, you aren't necessarily requesting a specific page, you're only asking the search engine to point you to pages that will hopefully be relevant to your query. It would be more honest and straightforward for Google to say that "based on our knowledge of what people search for, your page would appear so rarely among the highest-ranked results that we're not going to bother including it in our index." --Michael Snow On 1/19/2024 4:55 AM, nperry(a)wikimedia.org wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I am Nicholas Perry, Senior Manager of Strategic Partnerships at WMF. Following up on Jorge's previous email to add a summary of Google's recent response to this issue, which was originally shared by Suman on this Phabricator ticket: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607. > > ---- > The web is really large and the search index can simply not include every single page. A page that otherwise has no problems may not be indexed for a myriad of complex reasons, for instance if the indexing process determines that the page is unlikely to be requested in search. This is in line with the Search Central documentation that states: "Google doesn't guarantee that it will crawl, index, or serve your page, even if your page follows the Google Search Essentials." > ---- > > Google also shared a document containing resource links, which can be found in the Phabricator ticket. They also encouraged people to submit any questions and attend their SEO Office Hours (https://developers.google.com/search/help/office-hours), with the caveat that Google might not be able to answer all questions in a given instance. > > Best, > > Nicholas

Reply

Samuel Klein

21 Jan 21 Jan

6:39 p.m.

Google can certainly index our beloved, well-behaved, text- and context-rich, low-bandwidth sites.* The fact that this happens differentially for Google and not other indexes implies it's within their control. If you're getting boilerplate responses about SEO, you may not be talking to the people who care or can resolve this. I wonder if we can make this easier for indexers to understand and address by a) maintaining an index of essential free knowledge -- a star catalog of sites in the constellation: including our core sites, MDwiki, &c, -- pointers for each to a sitemap or equivalent, and a change-feed or equivalent b) maintaining visualizations of index speed and coverage, via spot checks SJ * Jorge wrote: "we don’t have any influence or can decide what Google indexes..." -- we seem to have a good deal of soft influence. "...or where Wikimedia content ranks in their search" -- as I understand it, this isn't about search rank at all. It's about being able to find newly added knowledge, that doesn't exist anywhere else online, in a range of languages. (asking about search rank may rightly trigger a boilerplate immune response) ** Scholar and Patents have their own feeds they prioritize; this could be a similar carve-out of attention. The sitemaps don't need to be accessible to "any spider on the web" (if this is why we turned them off). Something that only shows pages created or changed in the last window would also suffice. On Fri, Jan 19, 2024 at 10:46 AM Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)frontier.com> wrote:

...

I realize SEO has its own jargon, but to those not immersed in the field it is completely tautological to say a page is not indexed because "the indexing process determines that the page is unlikely to be requested in search." In an open-ended search, you aren't necessarily requesting a specific page, you're only asking the search engine to point you to pages that will hopefully be relevant to your query. It would be more honest and straightforward for Google to say that "based on our knowledge of what people search for, your page would appear so rarely among the highest-ranked results that we're not going to bother including it in our index." --Michael Snow On 1/19/2024 4:55 AM, nperry(a)wikimedia.org wrote:

Hi everyone, I am Nicholas Perry, Senior Manager of Strategic Partnerships at WMF.

Following up on Jorge's previous email to add a summary of Google's recent response to this issue, which was originally shared by Suman on this Phabricator ticket: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607.

---- The web is really large and the search index can simply not include

every single page. A page that otherwise has no problems may not be indexed for a myriad of complex reasons, for instance if the indexing process determines that the page is unlikely to be requested in search. This is in line with the Search Central documentation that states: "Google doesn't guarantee that it will crawl, index, or serve your page, even if your page follows the Google Search Essentials."

---- Google also shared a document containing resource links, which can be

found in the Phabricator ticket. They also encouraged people to submit any questions and attend their SEO Office Hours ( https://developers.google.com/search/help/office-hours), with the caveat that Google might not be able to answer all questions in a given instance.

Best, Nicholas

_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266

Reply

Ilario valdelli

1 Aug 1 Aug

9:24 a.m.

New subject: [Wikisource-l] Google not indexing Wikisource for last few years now.

To better index, you must follow as much as possible structured page. More gadget you use, more unreadable is the pages to the machines. Try to have a blind person reading the Wikisource pages with their own tools. Will it be difficult for them? Found the problem. You want to create pages which are more user friendly? But you do it for people having eyes. Machines doesn't have eyes. KInd regards On 01/08/2023 08:47, Bodhisattwa wrote:

...

Hello all, Apologies for cross-posting. For those who have not noticed till now, Google is not indexing any Wikisource language editions for the last couple of years which practically means that any Wikisource contents in any languages, which are being created in these years, are not searchable on Google and hence largely remain invisible on the web. This is an extremely demotivating and frustrating situation for the existing Wikisource volunteers to witness, draining away all of our past and current efforts to bring and retain viewers, readers, GLAM partners and any potential new editors. We already have a very low awareness and visibility about Wikisource among general internet users due to lack of organized support in these years but the invisibility on Google search engine could become the last nail in our coffin, unless it is fixed soon. There is a phabricator ticket raised by Darwinius back in December 2022 - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607. Can't this issue be put into priority by sys admins and WMF to work upon? Wikisource is still a sister project of Wikimedia and it needs some very basic care, after all. Regards, Bodhisattwa (Bengali Wikisource volunteer) _______________________________________________ Wikisource-l mailing list -- wikisource-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe send an email to wikisource-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

-- Ilario Valdelli Wikimedia CH Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera Switzerland - 8008 Zürich Wikipedia: Ilario Skype: valdelli Tel: +41764821371 http://www.wikimedia.ch

Reply

Dušan Kreheľ

12:30 p.m.

Hm. Page: La akonca (1888) (be.wikisource.org) Created day with the last modification: 17:26, 7 July 2023‎ CEST Indexed by Google: 7. júl 2023 18:21:14 UTC Not indexed: https://be.wikisource.org/wiki/Alkahol_(1913) 2023-08-01 8:47 GMT+02:00, Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com>om>: > Hello all, > > Apologies for cross-posting. > > For those who have not noticed till now, Google is not indexing any > Wikisource language editions for the last couple of years which practically > means that any Wikisource contents in any languages, which are being > created in these years, are not searchable on Google and hence largely > remain invisible on the web. > > This is an extremely demotivating and frustrating situation for the > existing Wikisource volunteers to witness, draining away all of our past > and current efforts to bring and retain viewers, readers, GLAM partners and > any potential new editors. We already have a very low awareness and > visibility about Wikisource among general internet users due to lack of > organized support in these years but the invisibility on Google search > engine could become the last nail in our coffin, unless it is fixed soon. > > There is a phabricator ticket raised by Darwinius back in December 2022 - > https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607. > > Can't this issue be put into priority by sys admins and WMF to work upon? > Wikisource is still a sister project of Wikimedia and it needs some very > basic care, after all. > > Regards, > Bodhisattwa > (Bengali Wikisource volunteer) >

Reply

Amir Sarabadani

3:28 p.m.

See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607#8846296 and onwards Am Di., 1. Aug. 2023 um 17:27 Uhr schrieb Lauren Worden < laurenworden89(a)gmail.com>gt;:

...

Has anyone tried telling the Google Search Console to index all the Wikisource language domains? Presumably a Foundation sysadmin would need to add the ownership verification tokens to do so: https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome -LW On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 7:53 AM Dušan Kreheľ <dusankrehel(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hm. Page: La akonca (1888) (be.wikisource.org) Created day with the last modification: 17:26, 7 July 2023‎ CEST Indexed by Google: 7. júl 2023 18:21:14 UTC Not indexed: https://be.wikisource.org/wiki/Alkahol_(1913) 2023-08-01 8:47 GMT+02:00, Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com>om>: > Hello all, > > Apologies for cross-posting. > > For those who have not noticed till now, Google is not indexing any > Wikisource language editions for the last couple of years which

practically

> means that any Wikisource contents in any languages, which are being > created in these years, are not searchable on Google and hence largely > remain invisible on the web. > > This is an extremely demotivating and frustrating situation for the > existing Wikisource volunteers to witness, draining away all of our

past

> and current efforts to bring and retain viewers, readers, GLAM

partners and

> any potential new editors. We already have a very low awareness and > visibility about Wikisource among general internet users due to lack of > organized support in these years but the invisibility on Google search > engine could become the last nail in our coffin, unless it is fixed

soon.

> > There is a phabricator ticket raised by Darwinius back in December

2022 -

> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607. > > Can't this issue be put into priority by sys admins and WMF to work

upon?

> Wikisource is still a sister project of Wikimedia and it needs some

very

basic care, after all. Regards, Bodhisattwa (Bengali Wikisource volunteer)

_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines

at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l

Public archives at

https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org…

To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org… To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave(a)lists.wikimedia.org

-- Amir (he/him)

Reply

Tilman Bayer

16 Aug 16 Aug

7:36 a.m.

Apropos Google Search Console: This might also be an opportunity to make public at least some of the data that Search Console provides to site owners. That should enable community members (especially from smaller projects) to detect such issues earlier and in a more systematic fashion - compared to the kind of experimentation on individual URLs that gave rise to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607 in this case. And also, to take a broader view, to think more systematically about content aspects of SEO. (Some of the smaller projects have been quite interested in this, see e.g. https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Search_engine_optimization .) If you are an editor of a non-Wikimedia website, Search Console is a standard tool to help understand where your readers are coming from, how they may be accessing your work and where your site may have issues that prevent them from doing so. There is no reason to assume it couldn't be quite useful for editors on Wikimedia wikis too. Publishing some of the Search Console data was already considered a couple of years ago as part of the conversations about https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T172581 . Back then, there was a sense that while there might be some privacy considerations regarding the more granular data, other parts could be made available with relatively little effort. Regards, Tilman On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 9:41 PM Sohom Datta <dattasohom1(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Has anyone tried telling the Google Search Console to index all the

Wikisource language domains? Presumably a Foundation sysadmin would need to add the ownership verification tokens to do so: https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome

This has already been done for a while.

for what I've read, it suffices to generate a sitemap file with MediaWiki and how to submit it to Google. There is a script for that: generateSitemap.php.

Once done, the sitemap has to be updated regularly in order to include the

new pages.

I did look into this, but it seems like we do not generate sitemaps for any sites right now ? The closest I got was https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T198965 which mentions that we did generate them around 2018 and hosted them on sitemaps.wikimedia.org, however they were recently (in Jun 2023) deleted due to the sitemaps being out of date and not helping our SEO rankings for Wikipedia. Also while digging this up right now, I came across https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T332101#8898869 which assumes that Google uses a RCFeed/EventStreams API provided by the Wikimedia Foundation to index pages. Is this true in the case of Wikisource, could it be possible that they (Google) might not be using this for Wikisource and/or Wikisource pages are getting filtered out (on Wikimedia Foundation's end) due to some configuration error ? Regards, Sohom Datta --- Open-source contributor @Wikimedia, @Chromium On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 8:59 PM Amir Sarabadani <ladsgroup(a)gmail.com> wrote:

See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607#8846296 and onwards Am Di., 1. Aug. 2023 um 17:27 Uhr schrieb Lauren Worden < laurenworden89(a)gmail.com>gt;:

Has anyone tried telling the Google Search Console to index all the Wikisource language domains? Presumably a Foundation sysadmin would need to add the ownership verification tokens to do so: https://search.google.com/search-console/welcome -LW On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 7:53 AM Dušan Kreheľ <dusankrehel(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Hm. Page: La akonca (1888) (be.wikisource.org) Created day with the last modification: 17:26, 7 July 2023‎ CEST Indexed by Google: 7. júl 2023 18:21:14 UTC Not indexed: https://be.wikisource.org/wiki/Alkahol_(1913) 2023-08-01 8:47 GMT+02:00, Bodhisattwa <bodhisattwa.rgkmc(a)gmail.com>om>: > Hello all, > > Apologies for cross-posting. > > For those who have not noticed till now, Google is not indexing any > Wikisource language editions for the last couple of years which

practically

> means that any Wikisource contents in any languages, which are being > created in these years, are not searchable on Google and hence

largely

> remain invisible on the web. > > This is an extremely demotivating and frustrating situation for the > existing Wikisource volunteers to witness, draining away all of our

past

> and current efforts to bring and retain viewers, readers, GLAM

partners and

> any potential new editors. We already have a very low awareness and > visibility about Wikisource among general internet users due to lack

of

> organized support in these years but the invisibility on Google

search

> engine could become the last nail in our coffin, unless it is fixed

soon.

> > There is a phabricator ticket raised by Darwinius back in December

2022 -

> https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T325607. > > Can't this issue be put into priority by sys admins and WMF to work

upon?

> Wikisource is still a sister project of Wikimedia and it needs some

very

> basic care, after all. > > Regards, > Bodhisattwa > (Bengali Wikisource volunteer) > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org,

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