[Foundation-l] No, even a couple of Google ads on each page would be a fatally bad idea

[Liam Wyatt]

On 6 November 2010 20:54, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:

> Liam Wyatt wrote:
> > Whilst I don't support or advocate for Wikimedia projects including
> > advertising, I would like to ask a hypothetical question. Would people's
> > opinions towards ads would be different if google's ads were to be
> > incorporated ONLY on the Search page:
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search in the whitespace on the
> right.
> >
> > This is by far the most popular individual page
> > http://wikistics.falsikon.de/2009/wikipedia/en/ and ads there would be
> able
> > to be served in a way that is both relevant to the end-user (based on the
> > term being searched for) and yet without having to "sell out" our article
> > pages. On the other hand it would mean we could no longer say "we have
> zero
> > ads" and it would create a lot of angry Wikimedians (possibly me
> included)
> > making the "slippery slope" argument.
>
> Careful there.
>
> A lot of people (and scripts) go through "Special:Search" because it
> follows
> links much better. For example:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=mw:MediaWiki works
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mw:MediaWiki doesn't work
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=wikia:un:UN:N works
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikia:un:UN:N doesn't work
>
> As far as I'm aware, this is the only reliable way currently (and for the
> past few years) to resolve interwiki prefixes in an automated and accurate
> way. I can't say for sure, but I have a strong feeling that this is the
> reason that "Special:Search" gets so many hits. "Special:Search" also
> likely
> gets a hit when the "go" button (or just the return key now) is used. All
> of
> these people wouldn't be seeing the page either. So your primary audience
> would be people searching on Wikipedia for a topic that doesn't currently
> have an article or a redirect. Given that a another sizable percentage of
> views comes from search engine results, the pool of actual views you're
> talking about becomes even smaller.
>
> The evidence is bolstered by another redirect page ("Special:Random")
> having
> so many hits according to the data you linked to. It's not even possible to
> view that page in any meaningful sense. Put some ads there and I doubt
> you'd
> hear many complaints, but you'd be getting millions of "views" each month.
> ;-)
>
> Calling "Special:Search" the most popular page (or basing fundraising
> theories on it) is dangerous and often misleading work.
>
> MZMcBride


Very good point. I was aware that with the new searchbox interface in the
Vector skin the way people access the search page changed so that now only
the people who actually misspell an article title get there (or when the
article doesn't exist at all). But I wasn't aware of these other methods.
Special:Random is a good case in point. Thanks.