Even though Wikipedia uses a NoFollow attribute on their external links, if you spam Wikipedia results, your site can end up in a penalty in both Google and Yahoo search engines. That is, according to Search Marketer and Wikipedia volunteer Jonathan Hochman.
In a recent article in Forbes which covered the Wikipedia discussion at SMX Social, Hochman told Forbes.com’s Andy Greenberg:
Wikipedia keeps a ’spammer blacklist’ and shares it with several search engines… Domains that appear on the list often lose valuable search engine traffic.
I have not heard of this before, nor had John Carcutt who informed me of this quote from Mr. Hochman.
Have any other readers witnessed or heard of this penalty?
It seems that the sharing of spam information on Wikipedia should be somewhat irrelevant to search engines, especially with the use of NoFollow.
- And how does one make the Wikipedia Blacklist?
- What constitutes one as a spammer to Wikipedia?
- Via automated spamming of external links, spamming of resources, or my editing of Wikipedia content?
The rest of the article is pretty amazing, especially:
Comedy Central’s director of enterprise marketing, Don Steele, Wikipedia has been a godsend. One of the network’s shows, South Park, has spawned more than 250 Wikipedia pages.’Wikipedia is one of the largest traffic drivers to ComedyCentral.com’
But what about this Wikipedia, Yahoo and Google spammer blacklist?
Comments
19 responses so far ↓
Michael Martinez on Oct 18, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Wikipedia is unscrupulous in a number of ways but I’m not surprised to hear about their reporting spammers to search engines. They are by no means the first social media site to do that and they won’t be the last.
I have often advised people NOT to try to game Wikipedia. But I also tell clients I won’t try to manage their companies’ Wikipedia entries, either. It’s better to leave it be and ignore it than to turn Wikipedia into a hostile entity.
Matt Cutts on Oct 18, 2007 at 1:59 pm
If you do a search for [wikipedia spam blacklist], the first result is helpful. It gives pointers to various strings and urls that Wikipedia has blacklisted on their site.
I’d characterize that list as much like a spam report: the data can be useful, but at least in Google it wouldn’t automatically result in a penalty (for the reason that site A might be trying to hurt site B).
That could be one of the things jehochman was referring to.
Loren Baker, Editor on Oct 18, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Thanks Matt, here’s the global Wikipedia Spam Blacklist for those who are interested, and maybe comparing their sites with it.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist
Cristian Mezei on Oct 18, 2007 at 3:04 pm
That’s one of the blacklisted websites/URLs.
Funny thing. That just proves that this list CAN be helpful in determining penalties, but it’s not nearly what it should be.
Jonathan Hochman on Oct 18, 2007 at 3:27 pm
I was there. :-) That Hochman guy actually said, “The blacklist is public, so search engines can read it. You don’t want to get on that list.”
This is one reason why it’s great to attend the conferences, because you can hear what’s actually said, rather than read about it second hand.
In fairness to the Forbes reporter, he tried to call me last night to confirm the quote, but I was putting kids to bed and didn’t get back to him in time.
In fairness to Matt Cutts, he shouldn’t help the gamers by confirming or denying anything, but if I were in his shoes, I’d use that data as a signal, while being careful to filter out any Joe Jobs. Another one of Matt’s colleagues told me that when people are spammers, they generally do all the shady things they can, not just one. If you only end up on the Wiki blacklist, that might be ignored. If you do a bunch of other shady things, that signal starts to look consistent.
I know some of the people who run the blacklist. Being hardcore geeks, they enjoy watching what happens to the search rankings of the sites they add. Their impression is that being added to the list isn’t a good thing for your search marketing campaign. Maybe that’s wishful thinking on their part, or maybe not.
Tyler on Oct 18, 2007 at 3:51 pm
“(for the reason that site A might be trying to hurt site B).”
Good to hear, that was my main concern with this concept.
David Gerard on Oct 18, 2007 at 3:54 pm
The spam blacklist is often used by other MediaWiki sites.
Durova on Oct 18, 2007 at 4:01 pm
As one of Jonathan’s copanelists and a fellow administrator, I agree.
It would hardly be possible for a Wiki to maintain this type of list without doing so publicly.
Mikhail Tuknov on Oct 18, 2007 at 5:18 pm
It doesn’t affect the ranking. I am on that list also, and so do you :-)
Ken Savage on Oct 18, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Ahhhh shit my own personal site is on there. I dont ever remember spamming wikipedia!!
Pozycjonowanie on Oct 18, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Thanks for the list maybe someone I will check if there is some of my sites
Durova on Oct 18, 2007 at 8:16 pm
If anyone here finds a joe job on that list, send me the evidence and I’ll check it out.
Loren Baker, Editor on Oct 18, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Thanks for the offer Durova, that’s mighty honorable of you.
Chris Work on Oct 18, 2007 at 8:52 pm
There isn’t a need to spam. You can usually find a valid entry into wikipedia for a client or website. Really digging into your clients products and services will expose an opportunity to expand on a subject -
mark on Oct 18, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Thanks Matt Cutts! You’ve answered my concern as well.
Aurelius Tjin on Oct 19, 2007 at 7:15 am
Glad to know about that.
Wiki can at least optimize the fight against spam! :)
Sergio on Oct 21, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Wikipedia is becomming better than never.
SEO Web Design on Jan 19, 2008 at 12:24 pm
If that is the case, any competitor could easily list his foes in the blacklist by spamming his foes’ sites across wikipedia. How can such blacklist works fairly in search marketing.
Matt Earle on Apr 14, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Like most things on wikipedia, if you are wrongly placed on the Blacklist, it can be appealed and will be dealt with in the same democratic process as the rest of the site’s decision making. I appealed a site today through this page and expect to have my whitelisting accepted as I was genuinely not spamming (of course) . White list -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Spam-whitelist
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