How many “top 10” Google search results does Wikipedia have? Seeing is believing!
by Randall McCarley
July 6th, 2007
Previously[2], I[2] covered[1] the[2] Google-Wikipedia connection. Mystery Mentor (remember him[4]?) suggested I put[1] Google’s unfounded trust[1] in Wikipedia[1] to[1] the test[8] by linking[1] to all[6] the top[7 & 8] spots[1] Wikipedia has[2] for random[2] words[1] in this post[3]. Clearly, Wikipedia is[2] dominating[1] a[1] wide range[2] of topics.
The numbers[2 & 3] in brackets[2] are[3 & 4] the position[1 & 4] I found[10] the words in and a homage[1 & 2] to Wikipedia’s footnotes[1 & 2] system[1 & 2]. They[5] also let[1 & 2] you know[6 & 7] which[3] links point[5 & 6] to a Google result[2] page[4 & 5] and which links are “normal[2 & 3]” - links without[2 & 3] a superscript[1] number next[1 & 2] to them[2 & 3] point to regular[1 & 2] pages.
This kind[2 & 3] of reminds me[2 & 3] of that game[2 & 3] a few[2] years[1] ago where[1 & 2] you use[1 & 2] a two-word phrase[1 & 2] in Google to find[1] a single[2 & 3] result. This is almost[5 & 6] as[2 & 3] difficult.
For the record[6 & 7], I wrote naturally and then[6] checked[7] to see[2 & 3] which words Wikipedia appeared in just[2 & 3] the top[7 & 8] 10[2 & 3] results. I’m sure[1 & 2] I could[10] have[6 & 7] done[5 & 6] some text[2] adjusting[4] with a thesaurus[10] to make[5] a bigger[5] impact[2] but[1] that just didn’t seem necessary[1 & 2]. I also avoided[7] repeating[9] links so[1 & 2] each unique[2] word should only be linked once.
I wonder[4 & 5] if this has anything[3] to do with the Buffy Update. It seems to me that rolled[7 & 8 out just after[1 & 2] Wikipedia was moved[1 & 2] from the “one box” to the organic[4 & 5] SERPs[1 & 2].
I also wonder what’s the point[5 & 6] of searching[1 & 2] on Google when the answer[7 & 8] always[7 & 8] seems to be “Wikipedia”.
Next Article: New Improved Linker’s Union: Site Updates Previous Article: Google - Wikipedia Connection Problematic
July 6th, 2007 at 2:13 am
PS. That was a lot of work and I never want to do anything like that again!
July 6th, 2007 at 2:31 am
OMG… The effort you made should bring you some reward… Nice thoughts and thanks for the information.
way to go..
July 6th, 2007 at 3:42 am
How Many Times Does WikiPedia Appear in Top Google Results?…
For every word from the post, there is Wikipedia in top 10 of Google search results pages….
July 6th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Thanks Kichus. :-)
July 6th, 2007 at 11:56 am
i like this
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what’s the point of searching on Google when the answer always seems to be Wikipedia
//
July 6th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Thanks ezhil - and welcome!
I updated the look a bit to reduce the confusion from the placement markers. Hope it helps. It’s still a cluttered mess as far as reading the content but that isn’t really the point here. Hopefully the impact speaks for itself.
July 8th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Very funny, Rand! It does get to be too much when every darned word is a link.
July 9th, 2007 at 8:23 am
Thanks Christina. I like your website and have stumbled across it several times on another project of mine - good work!
July 11th, 2007 at 12:42 am
Clever post Rand! Not sure what it was at first, by linking it to me looked like just a list. Impressed. ukDaz :)
July 11th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Thanks Daz. It wasn’t my idea but I ran with it.
July 11th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Holy Toledo, Rand!
I can’t believe you wrote this post. That must have taken you hours! It’s awesome. I started laughing when I saw it.
Really, really neat (and I hope someone, er, Google, is listening)
Miriam
August 14th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
A little late with this comment, but.. MS has done a study called The Influence of Caption Features on
Clickthrough Patterns in Web Search, one of the more surprising findings was this:
Most surprising to us is the negative influence of the terms:
“encyclopedia”, “wikipedia”, “free”, and “medlineplus”. The first three terms appear in the title of Wikipedia articles and the last appears in the title of MedlinePlus articles.