I’m not a huge contributor to Wikipedia. However, in the past I have donated some money to the foundation and contributed content to their site. I love Wikipedia… I use it all of the time and I reference it often on my blog. Wikipedia assisted me as well – generating some hits for my site AND Wikipedia improved my overall site rank through links back to me.
Given this view, hasn’t this been a give and take situation? I’ve given Wikipedia money and content. In return, they’ve given me improved search engine ranking and direct hits.
Now Wikipedia is adding nofollow to all external links. That basically knocks out a very key referrer to my blog, so no doubt I will lose search engine placement due to the decision.
I suppose it wouldn’t bother me except that we have both benefited from our business relationship in the past. Wikipedia only got it’s fantastic search engine ranking because:
- People contributed content
- People linked to that content
So, here’s the $10 question. Can we all get our money back, Wikipedia? You changed the business relationship to all of your contributors without asking them first. Maybe you’re not worth it, anymore.
To readers of my post a few days ago, you’ll be happy to know that you CAN improve your rankings by commenting with a link back to your website. I have disabled nofollow on my blog. So comment away! Provide some great content and reap the benefits!
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