[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia jumps _into_ the top 10.

[charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com]

Gurch wrote

> Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
> > On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 14:10:00 +0000, Neil Harris
> > <usenet at tonal.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> > 
> >> Only 8 more to go.
> > 
> > Unlikely, unless we start offering free email or setting every copy of
> > Windows to use Wikipedia as its default home page.
> > 
> > Guy (JzG)
> 
> Well... a lot (most?) of Wikipedia's traffic comes from search engine 
> results, which the site has been steadily rising through to the point 
> that it is now the first result for a huge number of search terms. So, 
> provided a search engine of some kind is the default home page, it is 
> never far away.

It is not 'fantasy' or even 'science fiction' that WP, or something rather like it, could be the world's top website by traffic. The reason that WP surpassed eBay on Alexa is not hard to see: eBay had come close to saturating its market, at least in the areas and languages at which it was throwing capital. It had found most of the people who wanted to use it. WP is not in that position, yet. It might struggle to overtake Google and Baidu. But there is no real reason why a reference site with a real global footprint might not dominate, if the search market fragmented more, and the Chinese-language portals don't consolidate. 

Anyway there is a slight silliness about this. If search sites are powered by Google behind a facade, 'Google users' understates the people who use Google.

Charles


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