The Wikipedia Threat to Google's Empire

Last month, Google accounted for a staggering 47.3% of all web searches, according to comScore. Naturally, Google's stock is following right in step. It's just off its all time high. However, for all the hype about Google vs. Yahoo et al, Wikipedia quietly looms as a huge threat to Google's dominance.

Google's value will only be upheld as long as it remains the relevance leader  - e.g. the quality of its search capabilities. This presents a dilemma. For starters, the Google search engine feeds on Wikipedia to supply much of its most relevant results. It even hosts Wikipedia pages. Meanwhile, Wikipedia is gearing up to challenge Google with its own search engine. And, with the launch today of Wikiseek, it becomes quite clear that you can indeed build a high quality search engine off the collaborative encyclopedia.

What's more, Wikipedia's rise is coming at a time when Google appears to be losing its focus on search. The company in recent months seems to be prioritizing the expansion its advertising empire through pursuits such as the $1.6B purchase of YouTube. Google feels like a very different company than it was just a couple of years ago when search was the focus.

Now Google releases products without any search capabilities whatsoever. Google Spreadsheets lacked search until rev 2 and Google Reader still doesn't have it. At the same time, Google's results feel increasingly littered with spam and irrelevant web sites. The ads it serves are often low quality too.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia, which turned six yesterday, is rising. The number of Wikipedians who have edited ten or more articles continues its hockey stick growth. In October 2006 that number climbed to 158,000 people. Further, media citations rose 300% last year, according to data compiled using Factiva. Last year Wikipedia was cited 11,000 times in the press. Traffic is on the rise too. Hitwise says that Wikipedia is the 20th most visited domain in the US. Let's not forget that Google was once this size too.

Google is surely aware of the dependancy it has on Wikipedia. Perhaps this is why it acquired JotSpot. They may want to have the bricks in place to build a rival to Wikipedia - if that's even possible.

As Wikipedia builds its search capability, adopts a WYSIWYG interface and gets easier to use, more netizens will get comfortable and become editors. Wikipedia's power will rise and soon it will become clear to all that it is an emerging competitor to Google.

Comments

[David Mastio]

Hitwise link broken

[Steve Rubel]

Fixed!

[Dan Jones]

Although this may simply be a "go-live" item, I would call wikisearch more of a co-opetitor. They are running Google ads on their site. The more popular they become....the better for Google. No?

[crystal]

It will be interesting to see how wikiseek does. Ask's results-- no matter the hype-- still is inefficient in its returns. Google is the go-to for me. Though it would be nice for any media company--new media or otherwise- to have its absolute powers limited by competition.

[NitinK]

I think you're right Steve, that the big competition for Google in future is going to be Wikipedia. The reason they both work so well is that they have efficient algorithms for harnessing distributed collective intelligence (aka "the wisdom of crowds") at a global level - PageRank, by using static links as a proxy for user votes and Wiki by allowing users to directly edit the content - so that the mean results converge on high quality.

Having said that, these are not the only viable approaches. To go out on a limb, I'll predict that the real challenge to these two is going to come from a competitor who introduces a discontinuous change by implementing a better algorithm for aggregating collective intelligence, with a fairer voting system and reasonable rewards for contributors.

[Joel Klein]

I've been using Wikipedia instead of Google for a long time. And the links that each article has is valuable.

[Ryan Holiday]

If there is one thing Wikipedia needs it's a better search engine. I can't even count how many times I've had to use Google to find the wikipedia article for something just because I wasn't sure exactly how it was spelled. Or even worse, I knew how it was spelled but for some reason WP still couldn't locate it.

Calacanis thinks WP is destined to be the #1 site on the internet, we'll see.

[Duncan]

Note, those Google % figures are for the US only, not the rest of the world, and the only thing staggering about them is how low they are compared to everywhere else, Google holds 80%+ market share in many other countries.

[LG Macias]

I use the services of google and wikipedia and i like both, i think at the end the great losers will be the expensive microsoft products.

[Stephane Rodriguez]

The way this post sounds is that Edelman wants to be the PR company for Google.

It shall also be reminded that comScore being a panelist, there is no way a SANE person can infer anything relevant from their numbers. That you, like many "influencers", insist to play with it speaks volume what your untold intentions are.

[matthew]

Wikipedia's search quality is far worse than google, try some simple queries, "search engine", "tech news". I believe there is a long way for them to go before it can be called a threat:)

[Mike Abundo]

Google's bots versus Wikipedia's humans, eh?

This'll be a fight to watch.

[John Johansen]

I do agree that Wikipedia is a growing site. I do agree that Wikipedia is gaining prominence in natural search results. However, I do not agree that Wikipedia is ready to take over as the world's knowledgebase.

Rather than leaving my opinions unqualified, I'll provide some back up to what I'm saying.
First, Wikipedia claims to be an open repository of human knowledge. This is a great ideal, or perhaps more precisely, a great dream. Wikipedia, while being open to any editor, is ultimately controled by the moderators. These moderators have the power to override the wisdom of the crowds based on their own personal criteria. This is regardless of their knowledge about the content. This gatekeeper style sharply contrasts with Wikipedia's mission, in my opinion. It also undermines the purported "the wisdom of the crowd will prevail" attitude that is the basis for the assumption that information on Wikipedia is correct.

That leads me to disagree with one of the points in your blog post, though granted I'm playing with the semantics a bit.
"For starters, the Google search engine feeds on Wikipedia to supply much of its most relevant results."
I understand that you are using the word 'relevant' in the search engine connotation of algorithmically defined results that match the searchers keywords. However, relevance of the Wikipedia page to the intent of the search is limited by the accuracy of the information provided.

Another disturbing trend is how often the mainstream media cites Wikipedia as validation of its material. One of Wikipedia Policies on content (rather than simply a Guideline) is that information must be Verifiable.
From the Sources section we get:
"Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require stronger sources."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability

Another of the Wikipedia policies is No Original Research. Going hand in hand with the first policy, you cannot post anything to Wikipedia that has been independently discovered. That is the responsibility of other forms of media.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research

This creates something of a closed loop because, theoretically, everything on Wikipedia has already been reported in some form of media. The mainstream media, rather than providing sources of orignal research (as they should be doing) is falling back onto the easier practice of reporting on what's already been said. That may drive up the popularity of Wikipedia but works against itself as fewer media outlets create their own content that can later be added to Wikipedia.

My comment is getting fairly long at this point, so I'll conclude with some references that have gotten me into this mindset. I was reading just the other day some discussions happening on SEO blogs about Wikipedia (or rather a specific Wikipedia editor) trying to dictate who is notable and who isn't instead of listening to the community -- something an open project like Wikipedia should be good at.
http://outofmygord.com/archive/2007/01/09/Will-Wiki-Whack-Matt-Cutts.aspx
http://searchengineland.com/070108-170335.php

[Keith]

Interesting observation, However most people outside of the US...and certain circles of bloggers techie et al in Europe and Asia don't even know what WikiPedia is.. let alone what a Wiki is.

Search and find.. thats what people like about Google.

They want to find things. One of the reasons Googles content offerings fail is that people want content from content providers.. not aggregators.. because, lets face it, specialist content providers provide better content than aggregators.

I worked for a very large ISP in Europe for 4 years with over 60 percent market share so I have a fair idea of what people were looking for.

The fact is that if every search result yields a Wiki result, people will soon get bored with the results....

They want variety. They want their infromation to be entertaining as well as accurate.

Wiki results all the time will just yield to consumer boredom... its why people don't use Yahoo for search in Europe. They don't want to be spoonfed content channels from Yahoo! or from Google for that matter.. they want to read branded content... not aggregated editorialised portal fodder laced with ads.

As long as google gives relevant results and focusses on what it does well then it will be fine... Altavista did this for a while, then thought it should be something else and look what happened!

[Mike Abundo]

They don't want to be spoonfed content channels from Yahoo! or from Google for that matter.

A vast segment of the global population still wants to be spoonfed, Keith. They're called n00bs.

[Ant]

Hi guys,

I'm personnally fed up with Wikipedia being always on top of Google results and I think this decreases the relevancy of Google itself and the fun of discovering new sites thanks to Google searches.

After long searches, I've found a way to hide remove block Wikipedia pages from Google results.

It's a Firefox extension called Google Customize http://www.customizegoogle.com/ that allows this.
Just add http://*wikipedia.org/* to the filter section of the options of this add-on and you'll be all set.

[Steve Craft]

no one has come close to the search engine of Google. Wikipedia won't return any of the sites i am actually searching regarding most of the specific terms of my interest.