Google's new search engine, Caffeine, is supposedly kicking Wikipedia entries further down results page. Thoughts? Comments? http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39484015,00.htm Thank, Serita ___________________NOTICE____________________________ This electronic mail transmission, including any attachments, contains confidential information of Bain & Company, Inc. ("Bain") and/or its clients. It is intended only for the person(s) named, and the information in such e-mail shall only be used by the person(s) named for the purpose intended and for no other purpose. Any use, distribution, copying or disclosure by any other persons, or by the person(s) named but for purposes other than the intended purpose, is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please notify the sender by reply e-mail and then destroy this e-mail. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of Bain shall be understood to be neither given nor endorsed by Bain. When addressed to Bain clients, any information contained in this e-mail shall be subject to the terms and conditions in the applicable client contract. _______________________________________
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Cox, SeritaSerita.Cox@bridgespan.org wrote:
Google's new search engine, Caffeine, is supposedly kicking Wikipedia entries further down results page. Thoughts? Comments? http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39484015,00.htm Thank, Serita ___________________NOTICE____________________________ This electronic mail transmission, including any attachments, contains confidential information of Bain & Company, Inc. ("Bain") and/or its clients. It is intended only for the person(s) named, and the information in such e-mail shall only be used by the person(s) named for the purpose intended and for no other purpose. Any use, distribution, copying or disclosure by any other persons, or by the person(s) named but for purposes other than the intended purpose, is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmission in error, please notify the sender by reply e-mail and then destroy this e-mail. Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to the official business of Bain shall be understood to be neither given nor endorsed by Bain. When addressed to Bain clients, any information contained in this e-mail shall be subject to the terms and conditions in the applicable client contract. _______________________________________ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
As long as all sites are getting treated equally, it's fine in my book. I only take issue when results are skewed because Google bumps results up/down arbitrarily.
-Chad
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Cox, SeritaSerita.Cox@bridgespan.org wrote:
Google's new search engine, Caffeine, is supposedly kicking Wikipedia entries further down results page. Thoughts? Comments? http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39484015,00.htm
[from my comments in #wikimedia-tech the other day] "So— I tried 20 random words, and the WP result was lower in four of them, the same in the rest." "No pattern really... We still have the problem with "article at funny name; redirect from common name; common name search on google gives squat", which I consider to be much more major."
When you're at the top there is no place to go but down. A larger comparison would be nice, but I didn't seen any reason to think that it was a major change. I generally expect the SEO people to over-react to, well, just about everything.
(I went on, on IRC, to point some examples of the behavioural change that happened towards the end of 2007 (per my cruddy memory) where non-widely-linked redirects basically fell out of the google index... search terms like "Jesus bug" or many other things like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Redirects_to_scientific_n... ... if we cared about the traffic flux from google we'd see what we could do to fix that)
On 8/13/09 12:23 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
(I went on, on IRC, to point some examples of the behavioural change that happened towards the end of 2007 (per my cruddy memory) where non-widely-linked redirects basically fell out of the google index... search terms like "Jesus bug" or many other things like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Redirects_to_scientific_n... ... if we cared about the traffic flux from google we'd see what we could do to fix that)
Worth looking into; have we got some collected info and sample queries to poke at? [I would recommend moving further detail discussion on this end of things to wikitech-l.]
-- brion
Perhaps we should try using the titles for things that other people use--not for g-rank, but as signs that we recognize that an encyclopedia is made for the readers.
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 4:56 PM, Brion Vibberbrion@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 8/13/09 12:23 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
(I went on, on IRC, to point some examples of the behavioural change that happened towards the end of 2007 (per my cruddy memory) where non-widely-linked redirects basically fell out of the google index... search terms like "Jesus bug" or many other things like http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Redirects_to_scientific_n... ... if we cared about the traffic flux from google we'd see what we could do to fix that)
Worth looking into; have we got some collected info and sample queries to poke at? [I would recommend moving further detail discussion on this end of things to wikitech-l.]
-- brion
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On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 5:09 PM, David Goodmandgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps we should try using the titles for things that other people use--not for g-rank, but as signs that we recognize that an encyclopedia is made for the readers.
Eh— It's unsolvable in some cases... People frequently use multiple terms for the same thing. And what happens when one term is really common in Canada and one is really common in the US? Do we always use the US version because the US is more populous than Canada? It would be a fair decision by one reasonable metric, but deeply biased by other reasonable metrics.
An alternative argument is that "When a 'more correct' name exists, we should use that because we're an encyclopaedia and we're supposed to educate people on these things". Perhaps you don't agree— but hopefully you can see why others can reasonably hold that position.
The real answer to this problem is ALL names should work equally, and with redirects they do. Except, it seems, that search engines behaviour may be undermining this to some extent. ... but changing the naming in response to the symptom rather than a response to the real problem.
On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 5:23 AM, Gregory Maxwellgmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Cox, SeritaSerita.Cox@bridgespan.org wrote:
Google's new search engine, Caffeine, is supposedly kicking Wikipedia entries further down results page. Thoughts? Comments? http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39484015,00.htm
[from my comments in #wikimedia-tech the other day] "So— I tried 20 random words, and the WP result was lower in four of them, the same in the rest." "No pattern really... We still have the problem with "article at funny name; redirect from common name; common name search on google gives squat", which I consider to be much more major."
A simple solution to this is using the canonical tags which all major search engines started supporting earlier this year.
<http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/canonical-link-tag/? Wikia's GPL code to add this to MediaWiki is available here: <https://wikia-code.com/wikia/trunk/extensions/wikia/CanonicalHref/CanonicalH... More info on it in Nick's blog post at http://www.techyouruniverse.com/wikia/google-canonical-href-with-mediawiki
Angela
On 8/13/09 5:28 PM, Angela wrote:
On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 5:23 AM, Gregory Maxwellgmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
"So— I tried 20 random words, and the WP result was lower in four of them, the same in the rest." "No pattern really... We still have the problem with "article at funny name; redirect from common name; common name search on google gives squat", which I consider to be much more major."
A simple solution to this is using the canonical tags which all major search engines started supporting earlier this year.
That's been deployed for a while, eg:
<link rel="canonical" href="/wiki/Foobar" /> at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo
-- brion
2009/8/13 Cox, Serita Serita.Cox@bridgespan.org:
Google's new search engine, Caffeine, is supposedly kicking Wikipedia entries further down results page. Thoughts? Comments? http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39484015,00.htm Thank, Serita
There is evidence that Google has pushed wikipedia down in the past. I doubt it will have much impact in the long term.
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Cox, SeritaSerita.Cox@bridgespan.org wrote:
Google's new search engine, Caffeine, is supposedly kicking Wikipedia entries further down results page. Thoughts? Comments?
So what? Wikipedia's goal isn't to get high search rankings. It's to be a useful resource within its domain. If a search for "flat screen TV" starts ranking online stores higher than [[Flat panel display]], say, that's not something we should be worried about at all. Good for Google for improving its search quality results. (For that particular query it already returns stores, POV reviews, and so on -- which is entirely correct.)
If Google is starting to rank us lower than our actual *competitors* -- other sites that aim to provide neutral explanations of factual topics -- then we should be looking at what people might prefer about those sites that would cause Google to rank them higher. It's not like Google is doing anything but matching demand, as far as it can gauge it. If Wikipedia gets moved to fourth place for a certain query, and then everyone skips the first three results to click on the Wikipedia link, I very much doubt we'd stay in fourth place for too long.
So, in short: forget about Google. Make a site that people want to read, and you'll get popularity not just from search engines, but also from word of mouth and every other means under the Sun. It's not like we're making ad revenue off people who come to Wikipedia but would really prefer to be someplace else.
Aryeh Gregor wrote:
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Cox, SeritaSerita.Cox@bridgespan.org wrote:
Google's new search engine, Caffeine, is supposedly kicking Wikipedia entries further down results page. Thoughts? Comments?
So what? Wikipedia's goal isn't to get high search rankings. It's to be a useful resource within its domain.
That principle is too easily forgotten.
Ec
On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 2:40 PM, Ray Saintongesaintonge@telus.net wrote:
Aryeh Gregor wrote:
On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Cox, SeritaSerita.Cox@bridgespan.org wrote:
Google's new search engine, Caffeine, is supposedly kicking Wikipedia entries further down results page. Thoughts? Comments?
So what? Wikipedia's goal isn't to get high search rankings. It's to be a useful resource within its domain.
That principle is too easily forgotten.
It's an over-simplification.
A resource that no one can find isn't a useful resource. Things like usability and simple awareness can have a major impact on the fulfillment of the mission even if they don't directly impact the content. There are many indirect effects as well— Less search engine hits means less readers means less editing means less content and probably less neutral content.
It also means less funding, and while the site wouldn't need as much funding with less traffic there would still be less money for things like software development where cost is not a function of traffic.
So— "So what?" is the wrong position. Good search positioning is not mutually exclusive with useful content. 'Content' is the first priority, but getting that content into peoples hands can't be far behind if we're to do something worthwhile.
Cheers, Greg
Greg wrote:
There are many indirect effects as well— Less search engine hits means less readers means less editing means less content > and probably less neutral content.
Ha!
In reality, one could just as well argue that less hits and less edits might mean a *perfect article will remain perfect and will not be whittled down into nothingness by some drop-in busybody.
-Steven PS: Sorry, for mentioning "articles" on Foundation-l
Notice how easy it is to have vacuous "discussions" in the absence of facts about user behavior.
On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 5:06 PM, stevertigo stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
Greg wrote:
There are many indirect effects as well— Less search engine hits means less readers means less editing means less content > and
probably less neutral content.
Ha!
In reality, one could just as well argue that less hits and less edits might mean a *perfect article will remain perfect and will not be whittled down into nothingness by some drop-in busybody.
-Steven PS: Sorry, for mentioning "articles" on Foundation-l
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Dennis Duringdcduring@gmail.com wrote:
Notice how easy it is to have vacuous "discussions" in the absence of facts about user behavior.
Query - to what "facts about user behavior" are you referring?
-Stevertigo
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