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Isn’t it becoming scary that no matter what you seem to search for on Google these days, Wikipedia is the #1 expert and has all the answers you are looking for?
Search Google for information on Pathology, apparently Wikipedia is more relevant than the Royal College of Pathologists.
Search Google for information on Presidential Elections, Wikipedia is more relevant than official news sites and sites for the Democratic Party & the Republican party.
You’ll find the same for Chicked Fried Steak, Wikipedia can tell you what it is, but Recipe and general interest sites dedicated to it are all somehow judged to be of less relevance. Even if you are searching for information about Cancer, Wikipedia is the #1 result.
While Wikipedia and other Web 2.0 sites can provide a wide variety of information and can draw from a vast knowledge base, the content can often be biased or inaccurate to a varied extent. When you are searching for this information in an academic context, such as in a topical journals or publications, you know what to expect and you formulate your own opinion on that work because you know that it is based on one person or organisation’s work.
However, when Joe Blogs is looking for an answer in Google, nine times out of ten he will take the info provided in the first result as a given. This isn’t a problem if the first result is a reputable and respected site written by knowledgeable professionals. The problem arises when the #1 result is a Wiki page that could have been written by absolutely anyone. Don’t get me wrong, for the most part the information is often generally correct, but there is so much room for error, it is hard to know when to accept or contest what is written without going to a genuinely knowledgeable source (In which case, why is this site not the top listing).
Let’s not forget that dedicated sites also contain more information, better references and, depending on the topic, can also provide a broader spectrum of related information.
So if Wikipedia and the like don’t contain the most relevant, most respectable and most complete information on your search terms, why do Google rank it in the top 3 consistently?
Wikipedia is condered an authority site by Google due to the huge amount of links it has generated both internally and externally. It also had a huge content base which spans many thousands of pages and covers pretty much any topics you can imagine (as well as some you can’t). The authority status given by Google has resulted in unusually large pagerank filtering down to the individual pages giving a false impression of importance.
So while Wikipedia may be a good general source of information, it is not the authority site for the majority of the topics it covers, though this is not reflected by the high rankings its pages receive.
Tanner Christensen has written an interesting article which raises the issue of people taking what is written on the internet for granted.
If Tanner is right, this means that people are taking the first result of their Google search and basing their knowledge on what they read. If that first result is a Wikipedia page written by Joe Bloggs who is no more qualified to write about it than the next random person we have a problem.
Is Google’s ranking of Wikipedia the problem or are the users to blame? Perhaps the Wiki contributers are to blame? Or is there any problem with this at all? What do you think?
February 5th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
It’s not really just that Wikipedia pages may not be written by experts. Who knows, that chicken fried steak page you point to maybe written by the World’s foremost chicken fried chef - whatever one of those is.
It’s more, as you point out, that Google is giving undue credit and authority to pages just because they are on Wikipedia.
This is a major algorithmic flaw and is just a pain in the arse when looking for useful information.
February 7th, 2008 at 4:59 am
I agree whole heartedly and say its a bit of both, but when you get companies allowing these things to happen they will continue to happen, its a bit like chinese whispers.
I Know for a fact that the wiki bit on a networking marketing company called Liberty League International,is written by one of its distributors and whether you agree with what he says or not its biased and is obviously there to promote him and shouldn’t be allowed
February 7th, 2008 at 10:35 am
I agree with David as I know various company profiles on Wikipedia that are written and maintained by their marketing departments.
I think we will see a lot more competition in our respective niches from Web 2.0 authority sites and not just Wikipedia.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:23 am
[...] Just Web Designers ‽ Blog Archive » Wikipedia: The fount of all knowledge? Isn’t it becoming scary that no matter what you seem to search for on Google these days, Wikipedia is the #1 expert and has all the answers you are looking for? (tags: wiki google wikipedia) Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
February 8th, 2008 at 9:04 am
When I was in university and wanted to find authoritative and accurate information, I used Google Scholar for my searches, which doesn’t show wikipedia pages. These days, when I google something, it’s generally just to get an overview of the subject. I find wikipedia to be very useful in this regard, and personally I like having a wiki page in the top of my search results. I know it’s not to be taken as the unbiased truth, but it’s easy to read and useful. I guess not everyone knows the internet is not infallible
February 12th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I wonder if I can get a page on wikipedia. I think this goes back to misinformation, which is something I was blogging about this morning.
February 13th, 2008 at 8:58 am
With millions of pages of just english entries, it’s going to be near impossible for every topic to be accurately portrayed. It should on the viewer of the sites to go out and find other information. Yes, Wikipedia is a great tool, but it’s a starting point, not the final authority. Just because it’s first on google, doesn’t mean it’s the most relevant, anyone who’s used google in the past 3-5 years knows that.
As far as pages about companies and so on, I wouldn’t even click the Wiki page already knowing that those closest to it edit and post. Use wikipedia for what it is, a good start, if you want more, use the external links at the bottom or go to the next google entry, it’s not that hard.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
“…Just because it’s first on google, doesn’t mean it’s the most relevant, anyone who’s used google in the past 3-5 years knows that….”
Jason, the problem is that NOT everyone knows this. In fact, I would suggest only a very small proportion of the Google using public know this.
The whole point of Google is that the first result IS (supposedly) the most relevant.
The problem with Wikipedia is that it has acquired a status in Google way beyond it’s real value.
February 14th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Surpirse, Google is not perfect. Is this any different from relying on Entertainment Tonight for your news? We have “authority” problems at both ends of the info chain. The sources have ulterior motives, and the “consumers” (us) are lazy and stupid.
February 17th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I wonder if the contributors are the main culpits for the inferior quality on the site now entirely for boosting their own egos with having submitted.
The main problem now is that people are taking the information on face value - but then it is their responsibility to double check the validity of the data.