Do Google donations to Wikimedia show any bias in search results?
-
Over the weekend we learned Google co-founder Sergey Brin donated $500,000 to Wikimedia, the parent company of Wikipedia.com.
Last year I believe Google donated $2 million to Wikimedia. I now ask, is this suspicious in anyway, seeing that Wikipedia ranks so well in Google for so many terms?
There are several blog posts about it online here and there throughout the years, but what does everyone think?
-
Most of the places where I am defeated by wikipedia are places where they deserve the top rankings. A few places they don't deserve it for the PAGE but they do deserve it because of the authority of their WEBSITE.
In my opinion, donations to wikipedia are paying a HUGE bandwidth bill and the administrative expenses required to run one of the busiest sites on the web.
If wikipedia is beating you then you must earn the position above them.
-
Google values good content and contribution from Wikipedia to users. It hardly to get crappy content on Wikipedia. So ranking matter is not relevant to donation.
-
Question is more like does Google's donations to Wikimedia imply they have some kind of relationship? Perhaps preferential treatment? Google seems to be very interested in keeping Wikipedia.com live. Wondering if that same concern transfers over to the algorithm in any way.
-
I highly doubt that there's any benefit in SERPs by donating money. However, if the site were to list the websites (in a link or otherwise) that have donated money it might give you a tiny, tiny, tiny boost. Doubtful.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Country Redirection Change
Analytics is showing a substantial decrease in referring traffic from Google specific regional domains like .ca, .co.uk, .de, etc vs an uptick from .com starting as of March 2018. Did anyone note when this change happened when Google stopped directing traffic to their regional domains? Was there any press about it (couldn't find any). Using a VPN for different countries, I compared regional specific domain SERPs vs .com and they're pretty much identical. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | Bragg1 -
Googles Search Intent – Plural & Singular KW’s
This is more of a ‘gripe’ than a question, but I would love to hear people’s views. Typically, when you search for a product using the singular and plural versions of the keyword Google delivers different SERPs. As an example, ‘leather handbag’ and ‘leather handbags’ return different results, but surely the search intent is exactly the same? You’d have thought Google was now clever enough to work this out. We tend to optimise our webpages for both the plural and singular variations of the KW’s, but see a mixed bag of results when analysing rankings. Is Google trying to force us to create a unique webpage for the singular version, and another unique webpage for the plural version? This would confuse the visitor, and make no sense.. the search intent is the same! How do you combat this problem? Many thanks in advance. Lee.
Algorithm Updates | | Webpresence0 -
Does Google use dateModified or date Published in its SERPs?
I was curious as to the prioritization of dateCreated / datePublished and dateModified in our microdata and how it affects google search results. I have read some entries online that say Google prioritizes dateModified in SERPs, but others that claim they prioritize datePublished or dateCreated. Do you know (or could you point me to some resources) as to whether Google uses dateModified or date Published in its SERPs? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | Parse.ly0 -
Where has Google found the £1.00 value for the penny black? Is it Google moving beyond the mark-ups too?
Hi guys, I am curious, so am wondering something about the Penny Black SERPs.
Algorithm Updates | | madcow78
Apparently Google shows a value of £1.00 Penny Black SERP From where does it come from? It's not the value Penny Black Value SERP The Wikipedia page hasn't any mark-up about it, actually it has the Price value mark-up of 1 penny Penny Black Wiki Markup Among the rare stamps, also the Inverted Jenny shows a value Inverted Jenny SERP But it's clearly taken from USPS and it's the cost of a new version of this rare stamp USPS Inverted Jenny Indeed, the mark-up matches that value USPS Inverted Jenny Mark-up I've been looking on-line for a new version of the Penny Black, but couldn't find anything.
The only small piece of information that I've found to correlate one pound with the Penny Black is on the Wikipedia page, but the point is: is Google able to strip those information from that piece? It's not a mark-up, it's not a number and mostly it's not a simple sentence like "The penny black cost was of £1.00" It reads "One full sheet cost 240 pennies or one pound sterling". Penny Black Wikipedia particular Is it Google moving beyond the mark-ups too? Thanks, Pierpaolo 9Cm3MOs.jpg f7XYNtF.jpg 5PpwapB.jpg hYUJswI.jpg 7kbIC4Q.jpg jnu1Gbe.jpg Wzltg0t.jpg2 -
Help for a webstore with Google Warnings for Watermark Images and Panda
I have not had too much experience with helping websites that have been hit by Panda - any tried and tested formulas I can pass to website owner would be great. He does not want to reveal domain name - its in the area of children/baby products 'Web site featured on page 1 of Google search results for many years (website 5 years old- Australian domain) . In April/May 2014, Google suspended our Google Shopping account because we used watermarks on all our images. We were advised that the suspension would remain in place indefinitely or until such time the watermarks were removed. We wrote back to Google to explain that these watermarks were put in place by our store back 2005 with the sole purpose of protecting our intellectual property. Needless to say, their attitude was unwavering. And as a result, revenue plummeted. However, the perfect storm was about to hit our store without warning. In the same month, Panda 4.0 was unleashed and our store was hit once again. This update alone reduced visitor numbers by around 50% overnight. The Panda 4.0 algorithm update was designed to target poor quality, duplicate content and unfortunately we had some of it. We have now begun creating original content with many of the new products we're uploading onto our web site. It's slow and tedious. We have modified our web site to now include a tag on a the home page (this was missing). We have removed many duplicate links from our footer (it was too big and contained hundreds of links that were also repeated from the header). We introduced a blog and we have engaged the services of a local seo company to disavow any bad backlinks and add missing or improve existing content to category and brand pages. No improvement in our situation is yet visible and with Christmas just 3 months away, poor sales during our 'bread and butter' period will mean even tougher times for our store in 2015. ANY PANDA EXPERTS who can help please email me [email protected] - looking for independent freelancers rather than agencies
Algorithm Updates | | GardenBeet0 -
How long does google take to re-ranking pages in results?
I mean when google dance, the pages in results go up and down frequency every minue, but finally your page will rank in any position in google, what is the time when you get another position in google
Algorithm Updates | | engtamous0 -
How to search for popular press releases
I would like to research popular press releases in my industry. Ones that got picked up by many popular outlets, got a lot of coverage etc. Besides mindlessly searching the web for press releases, is there a better way? Almost looking for a service that ranks press releases in terms of effectiveness.
Algorithm Updates | | StreetwiseReports0 -
Why would my product pages no longer be indexed in Google?
Our UK site has 72 pages in our sitemap. 30 of them are product pages which take a productid parameter. Prior to 1st Feb 2011, all pages were indexed in Google but since then all of our product pages seem to have dropped from the index? If I check in webmaster tools, I can see that we have submitted 72 pages and 42 are indexed. I realise we should have some better url structuring and I'm working on that but do you have any ideas on how we can get our product poages back into googles index http://www.ebacdirect.com
Algorithm Updates | | ebacltd0