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
-
What Ranking Factors Impact Google News Visibility?
I'm just at the beginning of a new analysis involving Google News visibility and ranking factors, and thought I could put the project out to you, dear SEO geniuses, to get your ideas and perspectives. Backgrounder: My company operates over 50 niche, disease-specific daily news sites, covering science, research and advocacy news about specific diseases. Virtually all of them are in Google News. They range in age from 3 years old to 3 months old. Varying degrees of page rank / authority Content on the site is completely niche to specific diseases, and we have a lot of sites for rare and orphan diseases. Most of the content is news, but we also have info/resources pages, blogs, and some short-form posts made for use in social media. The Project: I want to do an analysis of keywords in our news headlines and see how certain keywords correlate with articles that do well -- both in terms of search traffic and overall with users. Going to use our Multiple Sclerosis News Today website. Most of our search traffic comes from Google News. What I hope to gain: I'm curious to see if certain sets of keywords that relate to the disease, to therapies, etc. drive the most traffic. I want to compare these keyword lists to how well we rank in organic search for the same keywords (via news articles or info pages) to see if there is a connection. I want to also create a working keyword list of the best-performing keywords in the news as a way of cross-pollinating content production on our blogs, info pages, social content, etc. I want to increase my knowledge base of ranking factors specific for Google News. The last point is really something I wish I knew more about. I feel like there aren't many knowledge resources out there about Google News. Is it safe to assume that the same on-site and off-site SEO best practices that govern organic search engine visibility are at play in Google News, or are there independent factors as well? I'd love to get your thoughts. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | Michael_Nace0 -
Increase in impressions reported by Google Analytics
Because Universal Analytics (and Google Webmaster) only stores SEO data for 3 months, I've been downloading SEO data (from the Acquisition tab of Analytics) to get a record of how impressions, clicks, CTR etc are changing in the long term (our business is seasonal, so these long-term patterns are important). Today, I downloaded data for September, and found a very large increase in the number of impressions compared to previous months. I looked back at the data for August, which I've already downloaded, and found that Analytics is now reporting much higher numbers of impressions than I have in my downloaded data. The total number of impressions has roughly doubled, and the increase for individual URLs varies, with some increasing by a factor of 10. The number of clicks has also increased, by about 15% in total. Because of the 3 month cut-off, I could only look back as far as the 11th of July, but the impressions for the end of July are also much higher than in my downloaded data. I've noticed that Analytics has changed some other details in its reporting of SEO data. For example, the impressions and clicks data is no longer rounded. Could this increase in impressions be a result of those changes? Has anyone else experienced something similar? We can go ahead and use the new data but it will throw our analysis off for past months (which have the lower numbers). If others have experienced something similar it would be good to know, so that we can adjust our historical numbers accordingly.
Algorithm Updates | | MargotLoco20 -
Why am I not getting on Map Listing Results?
Greetings Mozzers, To my knowledge I'm doing everything that is "required" to start showing up on the map results when searching something local, however, we never seem to be on map results (A, B, C, D...etc). We have a Google+ page, submitted to Google Places (received PIN and entered it), optimized address to identical and in high authority map listing directories (GetListed.org), increased citations throughout the web, optimized keywords for categories on Google Places, schema.org HTML markup for address, meta address tags, consistent reviews being written by unique visitors to review sites (Yelp, Google+, etc). Am I missing a major component? Any advice would be great as I feel like I'm hitting many notes that should translate into a map result. Even for keywords that aren't incredibly difficult where we are ranking #1 above map results every time. Thanks and hope all have a great weekend!
Algorithm Updates | | MonsterWeb280 -
Google places - are you still registering your companies?
Is Google plus taking over from Google Places? I have our company and website registered on Google places and Google Plus. Now we have a new website ( same company different product) Should I register a new listing on Google places? And what about Google Plus?
Algorithm Updates | | Realtor1010 -
Google doesnt index my Google+ Profile
Hey guys! I know it sounds like a novice question, but I have checked ALL THE BOXES THAT TELL GOOGLE TO INDEX MY GOOGLE+ PROFILE. It is Visible for search - 100%. It's been 3 weeks since I opened a Google+ profile and it still hasn't been indexed for its name. Any guesses what's going on? (It's not this name so don't try to google me)
Algorithm Updates | | Yoav_Vilner0 -
How to Recover Ranking from Latest Google Panda and EMD Update?
We have 7 websites with the exact match domains. Our Website has been affected by Google recently updated (Panda and EMD Update). we don't want to do any changes in our existing domains. What should we do? So, What is the exact solution for that. Help Us out! Website Names: http://www.hamptoninndenverairport.com http://www.wingatehotelcolumbia.com http://www.fairfieldinnhotelaurora.com http://www.hamptoninnhotelcrestwood.com http://www.laquintahoteldavenport.com http://www.redroofinnhotelcedarrapids.com http://www.hamptoninnhotelcarolstream.com Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | CommercePundit1 -
Why has my homepage been replaced in Google by my Facebook page?
Hi. I was wondering if others have had this happen to them. Lately, I've noticed that on a couple of my sites the homepage no longer appears in the Google SERP. Instead, a Facebook page I've created appears in the position the homepage used to get. My subpages still get listed in Google--just not the homepage. Obviously, I'd prefer that both the homepage and Facebook page appear. Any thoughts on what's going on? Thanks for your help!
Algorithm Updates | | TuxedoCat0 -
Any ideas on how Google +1 handles URLs and canonicals?
If your URL string shows up in a search and they +1 the URL with the coding in it will the +1 transfer to the canonical page? Example: site.com/locations/arizona/?utm_source=go gets a Google +1 from a user. The page itself has a canonical for site.com/locations/arizona/ Does google credit the canonical with the +1 or do they then have dup pages with separate +1 scores?
Algorithm Updates | | Thos0030