Remove Wikipedia from the Organic Listings
Recently Squidoo got hit with the Google authority whacking stick. They were “over ranking” for various terms and Google decided that they should be given less relevance in the search results. And of course as a result they were beaten down in the Google serps. So from Google’s point of view, when a website starts unduly influencing the search engine results, you adjust them so they fall back in line.
What I want to know is what about Wikipedia?!
Wikipedia is literally dominating search rankings across the board, and in more categories than any other single organization. Please understand, I am a Wikipedia fan. I think what they have built is absolutely amazing. They are the role model for what mass collaboration can do. And it’s a great resource. But it’s really grown out of control in the search engine results. They literally show up for everything now (rank position #7 in Google, 4 in Yahoo, 11 & 12 in MSN for “everything”).
The have so much authority that they can rank for whatever they want. And that’s fine and great. But given their size, isn’t it time to start treating them as a special case? Why doesn’t Google just make a special entry at the top of the search results for Wikipedia (like local search results)? They almost always show up anyway. Just add a line at the top of the page: Wikipedia has this to say about everything and they know it all.
Then…
Take them out of the organic listings completely!!!
By giving them their own special listing, if people are looking for more information they can visit Wikipedia. Everyone knows that Wikipedia is a good informational resource. But when they want to buy something why should Wikipedia show up in the search results? By taking Wikipedia out of the normal search engine results, the other people who are actually relevant to what the searcher is looking for are there where they belong.
And incase you were wondering, the Answer to the Ultimate Question about Life, the Universe, and Everything, is 42.