Wikipedia Added to Google OneBox

Google has quietly added a new OneBox feature that highlights articles from Wikipedia. All you need to do to is tack on the word "info" or "information" at the end of your query and Google will put a large Wikipedia link at the top of the results page. Your search keywords and the Wikipedia article title need to match up exactly, otherwise the Onebox links don't show up.

As Wikipedia's power and brand rise, Google is going to dig deeper into the citizen-edited encyclopedia. Google loves frequently updated information so the fit is perfect. This will occur even as Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales readies a Google competitor. While this OneBox is not a search engine for Wikipedia, it sure comes close. There's nothing to stop Google from going further and building a Wikipedia search engine and I suspect they will.

Google Onebox spotlights special results such as news, stock quotes, weather, music and maps when certain trigger keywords are used. Blogs were added last week.

Tags: wikipedia, google, onebox

Comments

[Ryan Holiday]

This is a good preemptive move on Google's part. Obviously Wikipedia is going to become one of the top 3 or 4 websites on the internet--a fact that could greatly diminish the reliance on Google search results. This sort of reminds me of an article I read yesterday about Google become the new version of 'http' with people typing in Facebook instead of going to the address facebook.com. With Wikipedia's currently inferior search tool, Google is making a move to become the go-between for people looking for WP articles.

I'm hanging on to my stock. They seem to be in a continuous form of adaptation.

[kid disco]

This has been going on for over a year...

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/002999.html

[Usman Tilly]

As one of my lecturers conjectured, Wikipedia may well be full of debatable information, but often it gets the definition of an article/object absolutely spot on (i.e. The first few sentences).