[Foundation-l] Question to post...

[Aryeh Gregor]

On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Cox, Serita<Serita.Cox at 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.