Encyclopaedia Britannica saying goodbye to print
For nearly 250 years, Encyclopaedia Britannica has been a household name. Once the encyclopedia of record, chances are your family had an Encyclopaedia Britannica set sitting on the bookshelf, or that you've picked up a heavy volume at school or the library.
Yesterday, however, Encyclopaedia Britannica announced that it's going all digital and will no longer be a print publisher.
Why Wikipedia is top on Google: the SEO truth no-one wants to hear
There was an interesting study published this week which looked at 1,000 search terms in Google and measured the rankings for Wikipedia.org, which posed the question does Google give too much prominence to Wikipedia?
As a quick recap, Wikipedia ranked for a huge 99% of the terms (as selected with a random noun generator).
While many people may consider this an unfair bias from Google towards Wikipedia, I'm not so sure...
Does Google give too much prominence to Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is page one for 99% of Google UK searches, according to a study of 1,000 searches using randomly generated nouns.
The research, carried out by Intelligent Positioning, raises a number of questions.
Is Google giving too much prominence to Wikipedia, or are these rankings justified?
SOPA debate looks set to rage despite blackout protests
On Wednesday several major websites, including Wikipedia and Reddit, took their services offline in protest at the proposed SOPA bill.
For Wikipedia, the self-imposed blackout actually had the affect of increasing traffic as people logged on to see what the fuss was about.
In a nutshell, SOPA is an attempt to crackdown on internet piracy by shutting down sites that host copyrighted material.
Opponents say that it goes too far, as sites that link to other sites that host pirated material can also be shutdown, and threatens free speech.
A Wikipedia page for SEO? Not always
About six months ago I was trying to figure out how to get a client past Wikipedia for the term 'spread betting'.
Most people know that taking on Wikipedia for rank can be difficult because the website carries so much topic authority and a lot of people link to it. So much so that Wikipedia’s authority can trump a very popular, useful website.
In fact, one of the main rules of SEO is get a page on Wikipedia. This shows a level of Authority because you are significant enough to be listed.
Wikipedia is getting a makeover. Will readers notice?
Wikipedia has spent a long time defending itself against more established reference materials, but now the user-generated encyclopedia is having the opposite problem. If enough random people aren't contributing content to the site, it could lose relevance.
The company is hoping that a new redesign will help encourage people to take an active role creating and editing its content. But will readers notice?
Wikipedia is losing editors. Is free user generated content dying?
Wikipedia may be the fifth-most-popular website in the world, but most of those viewers come to look without adding or changing any of the content on the site. And if viewers stop contributing content, Wikipedia will cease to survive.
According to the Wall Street Journal, that's not so far fetched. Wikipedia is currently hemorrhaging article editors. If Wikipedia can't get people to contribute to its voluble entries, is it possible for free user generated content to survive?
Adding Wikipedia to the reputation monitoring mix
With the rise of social media, it's no surprise that online reputation monitoring has been a growth market. Knowing what consumers and customers are saying about you on the internet is extremely important.
Generally, sites like Twitter and Facebook get the most attention when it comes to reputation monitoring but there's another site that may be even more important for brands to keep an eye on: Wikipedia.
Wikia and Jimmy Wales shutter Wikia Search
Can search be crowdsourced? It's a question that Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, set out to answer when his for-profit company Wikia launched Wikia Search.
Wikia Search, which we reviewed here on the Econsultancy blog when it launched, tried to give users the ability to edit search results in much the same fashion that users can edit pages on Wikipedia.
Q&A: Ian Grant of Encyclopaedia Britannica UK
Ian Grant is the MD of Britannica UK, responsible for the EMEA regions. I've been talking to Ian about how EB has adapted to the internet, the threat from Wikipedia, and its plans for the future...
