Wikipedia Selling Links For $5000
Trawling through a list of links to the websites of a client’s competitor the other day, I noticed several keyword-heavy anchor text links to their sites from a page on the WikiMedia Sustaining Corporate Donors page. Intrigued, I spent a few minutes clicking around the WikiMedia site and searching to see what it takes to get listed on this PageRank 6 page (not that PageRank should be taken as a particularly significant metric these days of course).
Having failed to find any information, I emailed WikiMedia directly to ask what kind of donation is required to appear on the page. The reply was a fairly astonishing $5000. To quote:
We recognize the search optimization benefit to having a hyperlink on the page and are, of course, happy to provide this value for our donors.
In fairness, the email goes on to say that the primary purpose of the page is to serve as a special recognition of their most generous supporters and that their are no special procedures or considerations governing that page, “although it is very helpful if you let us know in advance the hyperlink URL and anchor text you would like to add.”
Take a look at some of the links on that page – I know for a fact that there are a group of six links to different sites that are all in reality the same company. Not only do they look a tad spammy in their keyword choices (very few are the names or brands of the website/business), but I find it hard to believe that such a business is willing to drop $30k on one link to each of six sites. So I guess WikiMedia are open to negotiation or have changed the minimum donation recently.
Is this buying/selling links? Should Google care? Assuming the sites on there are benefitting from the links, it seems a pretty clear case of “manipulating the algorithm” through financial clout rather than providing quality content that people want to link to. Don’t get me wrong, I want to see Wikipedia survive and flourish and I’m not trying to deny them the funding they need; but it does rather highlight the moral conundrum Google finds itself in and I suspect the “donation” rather than outright sale aspect is the excuse they need to sweep it under the carpet. Doesn’t change the fact that $5k will buy you the anchor text you want from a PR6 page on an authority domain though does it?
I was going to comment on the story here, but instead I’d like to point out that you have the best damn logo I have seen in a very long time.
You should do a physical version of it with cylinders contracting to touch like HAL2000 memory banks in Space Odyssey.
Thanks Dan, glad you like it! We have the talents of my lovely lady Helen Foster Design to thank for it.
Uhh, all I see if “WikiMedia” links for sale, not “WikiPedia” links for sale. WIkiMedia is a foundation, WikiPedia is an encyclopedia.
True, but WikiPedia is just a project (brand) of WikiMedia so it’s the same people – I just thought more people would recognise Wikipedia.
With that many links on the page I’m not sure it’s such a great value for the money.
Agreed, and who’s to say that Google isn’t filtering it anyway?
The bigger benefit in this case would be refferal traffic.
You think so!?
[...] Wikipedia Selling Links For $5000, Boom Online Marketing [...]
[...] Wikipedia Selling Links For $5000, Boom Online Marketing [...]
I would be interested to see how much they are willing to accept. If you offer 100 dollars they will accept it!
Well, as I said in the post, I can’t belive all the companies on there paid $5k…
[...] Wikipedia Selling Links For $5000, Boom Online Marketing [...]
I think you’re exaggerating a bit here. Being listed on the “donors” page doesn’t necessarily evaluate to “buying a link for $5000″. I doubt any of the entities on that list really “did it” for the link juice…
Well I’d love to know why else they did it, considering the keyword-rich anchor text rather than the brand names they’re using. Maybe they all have a big love for Wikipedia, but…
Helen Foster Design rock , yes your logo is outstanding.
As for the Wiki’s they all need to make a living.Either way it will be good to get a get link but too steep for me.
Thanks
Thanks re: the logo, Helen says she is flattered!
Agreed re: WikiMedia needing income, I’m not condemning them for it at all, I just thought it was another interesting paradox in the whole “Google vs. paid links” scenario.
Well at the moment, there are not THAT many links. And it’s not the actual juice, it’s the TRUST factor that is worth the 5k. Will definately be looking deeper into this one.
There is now question that having a link on Wikipedia would be great for SEO, but for $5000? That is too much. For that money I would by tons of premium tools and services.
Hey Ian,
Thanks for bringing this to everyone’s attention.
I am just a inquisitive as you are when it comes to something that looks a little “off” in terms of links.
I hate to begrudge anyone their hard earned efforts (whether via .gov/.edu links or other means) but paying for links is paying for links.
Now, this is a bit of a grey area in that oftentimes, schools/universities, and other sites will give you a listing/citation just saying thanks for a donation.
They probably know 1% of the SEO knowledge that we do, so in their minds, they might not even realize this could be construed as link buying.
So long as it’s not entirely nefarious, I don’t see anything wrong with an organization thanking their vendors, sponsors and affiliates as long as it’s not a blatant money grab and paid medium for links.
In the case of Wikepedia, I’m prone to give them the benefit of the doubt for a couple of reasons:
- They need the money to survive
- While keen on SEO (From their willingness to swap in whatever anchor text someone wants) their overall content and benefit to the web outweighs this slight transgression
At any rate, I think these types of “grey” should be monitored closely, and looked at if they dip too far one way or the other.
For now, I believe the Wikepedia is still ok because of the totality of their value to the Internet in general and the very thin slice of this one potential “transgression”.
Hi Chris, I totally agree that any organization receiving donations etc. should be thanking their sponsors and indeed it’s part of the deal – if sponshorships don’t work commercially, i.e. there isn’t a business benefit, they won’t happen. I certainly don’t want to see WikiMedia punished in any way and hey, this post might just have got them a couple of other sponsorships!
Interesting. Perhaps they are testing the waters….
They have to start paying contributors.
We do….
Jim Pruett, Director
wikiSPEEDia.org
A TN charity
I would say PR is still a big factor to look at if you are going to purchase a link on a page. The links on this page are unrelated and do not relate to the linked pages, so if people are paying 5k only for a link on this page, well they are really overpaying and won’t do a ton for SEO.
Yeah, I hear what you’re saying Chris, it’s the old contextual link debate – does unrelated anchor text/content still pass value etc. I’ve certainly seen examples where it does, but usually in a brute-force scenario, i.e. hundreds or thousands of links, not just the odd high-PR one. My guess is that it’s a link worth having, but I certainly wouldn’t pay this much for it.
Thing is that their is too many links on that page for it to hold strong value yet the authority of the domain clearly also comes into play.
It is clear that the people who are running this donations page is looking to benefit off keyword rich terms so it is kind of dodgy.
But is this a new strategy lol, no way people have been doing this type of thing for the last 10 year, especially with EDU’s.
Heh, not new at all as you say James, although the price and organisation in question is something I haven’t seen before.
I think that $5000 could be spent better personally, but I seen this concept before. It’s very grey.
Donators on many edu, gov, or non-profits will list their donors with a nice do follow hyper link.
Is it, right? I don’t… I guess up to Google. I personally don’t think the one link is enough to sway rankings one way or another.
Interesting topic though and fun to debate.
You’re probably right after all. I’ve taken another look at that page, and it does look like some entries there, like “marriage counseling”, have little to do with the actual company names. Sure, a great “dofollow” keyworded link, but 5000 bucks!!!? C’mon people, there’s a better way to deplete your budgets!
Hi Mate, I agree that it is a high organisation in question. But I have seen government organisations, police organizations affiliated with government all have hidden links to insurance sites within index pages.
SEO companies will go to any length to obtain links.
Has there been a conclusion anywhere on whether or not .edu and .org links carry more weight with Google? I keep seeing conflicting information there.
Also, $5000 is a whole lot of money.
I’m not sure I’ve seen any evidence purely on being a .edu (and certainly not a .org), but the principle is that public sector bodies, non-profits etc. tend to have a lot of link love simply due to the type of organisation they are, so links from those sites usually carry a decent amount of authority by extension.
Mad interesting article! $5000 is a little out of the range of a lot of companies, but still – one has to constantly question how “sponsorship” is any different than “link purchase”. I mean, do people out there really believe so strongly in what Wikipedia is doing that they want to pay for it? There must be some, but come on.
[...] The price for this appearance at the Wikimedia hall of links? $5000, says Ian at Boom Online Marketing. [...]
I’m with you on this one Chris – there are a few charities that I’m a big supporter of and I don’t want to see them missing out on donations because businesses don’t get the PR (as in public relations)/SEO/branding benefit.
But when I threw this out to SEOs on Twitter, the feeling that donor mentions = buying links was pretty strong. I guess that may explain the high price tag – it’s clearly a substantial donation, worthy of a mention and it’s high enough that it (should) detract too much spamming. But yes, it’s definitely a grey area and one that needs monitoring!
Totally agree. I’m an Wikipedian but if you don’t show this to me I would never know the existence of this page. Remember, Wikimedia projects is practically, totally ad-free. I honestly don’t know if there’s any problem to mention their sponsors’ name and links in such an inconspicuous page. The money requires to be mentioned in that page leaves some room of controversy, I admit.
I just noticed that they took down the links on the page you referenced – http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Sustaining_corporate_donors. Instead there is a message that says “This page is being updated.” It will be interesting to see how they end up changing that page. How about doing a follow up article once they finish their update.
Yes, I can see it was brought to Jimmy Wales attention (Wikipedia founder), followed by an explanation from another member of their team about old/wrong email templates being used for their reply. There are still some spammy looking links on the Benefactors page down the bottom, but I suspect these will be cleaned up in time too from the tone of the discussion.
Ian, great post!
I hope Google looks at these as paid links.
Maybe google decided to discount this page as I see it now as PR3
Yeah, they’ve stripped the majority of the links out and show you roughly how much everyone is donating too! Much better.
Thanks to your Bondism, the PR of the said page seems to have come down (apart from many other changes)
The name’s Lockwood. Ian Lockwood. Well spotted, although as it’s only dropped from 6 to 4 they haven’t exactly slapped down hard – if the page has indeed been devalued as a result of link selling and not some other mystery of the algorithm..