Google's Last Update: Take down Wikipedia?

OK,

I run a wiki site and the last update that Google did I noticed two things:

1.) My wiki was severely penalized.... dropping 10 to 20+ spots for most pages
2.) Wikipedia was severely penalized.... dropping 5+ spots for many pages

Both run on Mediawiki. I know Google was considering that they should operate a Wiki type site. I think they might have been nervous about Wikipedia's complete take over of search results.

So I think that Wiki structures were punished. What is common in Wiki's are tons of internal links that make Wikis fun to use, but aren't really an attempt at SEO.

Just curious if anyone has any thoughts on this. Why were wikis penalized? and What is different about the new algorithm that penalizes wikis?

My theory is that internal links are of much lessor value.

Ideas?

 

Off course, google is preparing Google Knol !!!

So drop for wiki, boost for knol
Yes, google is good :sarcasm:

 

Yes, I notice the same things that you mention and I also suppose that it's because Google want to push very hard Knol.... or hope it's the bump that always occur when a google update is on the run...

 

May be you are right. There can be two reason, first, google has its own Knol now. Secondly, wikipedia has plans to build their own search engine to end google SE domination.

 

This is all very new to me, but I'm very excited about the thought of wikipedia building a search engine to compete with google.

 

true, when i first saw the opening post i first thought of wikipedia's competing search engine.

 

I wonder how they'll treat Wiki backlinks now?

I've seen dramatic changes from longtail serps from one really good wiki backlink, even though it was a nofollow.

 

I dont see that wikipedia was dropped.
I just make a search for "john f kennedy" and wikipedia was #1

 

Wikipedia was one or two in a number of searches today and yesterday.

 

I did notice a recovery of Wikipedia during the past week but for about 2 weeks it appeared seriously damaged in the rankings.

 

Sounds like chinese whispers to me

I use wikipedia everyday and haven't noticed the afore mentioned drop in rankings in Wikipedia

 

How come I never noticed any drops for Wikis in the SERPS? Maybe you are just being paranoid? hehe

 

i also have not seen any drop of wikipedia serps! if that happened then i could come on top for many of my keywords that wiki holds the top spots for

 

Wiki positions seem the same to me in SERP

 

Same positions here too.

 

i dont think google punish a php scripts. it does not change their algo. according to a php script.

i do not agree with you

 

I don't agree - Goolge will try it's best to make Google Knol successfull but not at the cost of penalizing wiki .

MB

 

I don't think google specifically target wikipedia and such sites this won't be ethical.

 

I'll bet you're right that it's because of Knol. For so long, Wikipedia has had top placement.

 

According to Alexa, Wikipedia lost 4% of its traffic (as percentage of total daily viewpages) in the last three months and the loss according to the graph was too sharp to be by chance.

Google brings most of the traffic to Wikipedia and it's probably the reason of the drop. Probably just a tweak of the algorithm to give less traffic to Wikipedia.