

Wikipedia selling links for $5000 - zone411
http://www.boom-online.co.uk/wikipedia-selling-links-for-5000

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_delirium
This is a fairly common practice, I think. Linking back to recognize major
donors is quite old, and people donating _solely_ for the linkback is newer
but still not that new. For example, if you look at NetBSD's donor list, some
are quite clearly unrelated to technology, and are donating just for the link:
<http://www.netbsd.org/donations/2011.html>

~~~
zone411
This is still against Google's spam guidelines, though. If they are to be
consistent, I think they have to take action.

~~~
_delirium
Yeah, I agree it doesn't look too good. That NetBSD page is only really
different from a "send me $100 and I'll post your link on my links page" thing
(which Google prohibits) by the fact that NetBSD is a nonprofit and therefore
it's a "donor list".

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GiraffeNecktie
Whoa! This is either absurdly misinformed or just a troll. It's not WikiPEDIA
(the encyclopedia) selling LINKS it's WikiMEDIA, the parent organisation
selling corporate SPONORSHIPS (which happen to include a link, as one would
expect.)

Sheesh.

Flagged

~~~
zone411
Wikipedia is the flagship project of Wikimedia. I think you're nitpicking if
you think there is much of a distinction on where the links are appearing.

~~~
wccrawford
The links are not on Wikipedia's page. They're on Wikimedia's. It's a huge
difference because the focus of each site is different, no matter that they're
both owned by the same company.

~~~
zone411
Because of how PageRank works, no, there is no real difference at all.
Wikipedia's homepage and many other pages link to Wikimedia and that's how it
gets its high page rank and that's why it can sell the links this way. Other
links on Wikipedia are all no-follow.

This is the same organization and in terms of PageRank algorithm there is no
distinction. If you create a link to any Wikipedia page, it makes the
Wikimedia page in question become more valuable in the eyes of Google and
that's why buying the links there is worth the price.

~~~
iamdave
If that were the case, why is it when I look up "Page rank", wikiPedia is the
first result and not wikiMedia?

~~~
zone411
There is no unique page about "page rank" on Wikimedia's site, so search
engines that would return it as a result would be doing something very wrong.

Try "job openings" in Google. I see Wikimedia as #7 in the search results,
right after huge websites devoted just to jobs. Do you think it got there on
its own merits and it should be there instead of, let's say, Walmart's job
page? No, that is all outside links to Wikipedia giving it its high ranking.

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zone411
If the email quote from that page is accurate, then this is very blatant and
the largest scheme in dollar amounts I've seen to manipulate search results.
However, I will be quite surprised if Google does anything at all to penalize
Wikipedia.

