Do you think it would be more likely for a link to stay longer if you create the article, rather than edit it?
Probably doesn't make much of a difference either way. All of the articles that I have created have been changed 100%. Most of my edits are gone, too. Wikipedia is just a place that changes a lot. It's not a place you can count on for permanent links without a ton of work and an extremely relevant site.
Indeed... If one is trying to use Wikipedia to help promote their site and build back links to their site, their time would be better spent finding other ways to promote their site. Another way to look at it is that every time you post content on Wikipedia related to the subject of your website, you are feeding your biggest competitor. In the long run this will harm your efforts to gain higher placement in the SERPs more than it will help. If you want to do better in the SERPs, stop feeding the monster and find other sources of back links that do not require you to provide content turning that content into competition that works against your own site.
thats what i thought. tried to add my site to one article who already had some external links, some to far more commercial sites than my own (is a site with free content and only 1 banner commercial?), and some far less relevant to the topic than my site. my link was a removed a few hours later
I agree, out of three (highly relevant) sites I placed in there 4 months ago, two of them disappeared within 5 minutes. The final one looked like it was going to survive but sadly it was removed this weekend. I guess removal of a PR6 backlink will have quite an impact on the PR for that site?
I have a few wiki links which wheren't added by me. They actually fetch about 10% of my site's traffic (which is science oriented), and will probably give it a decent PR once google will move their behind...
Oh, and I am one of those who often 'cleans up' wikipedia, either from distasteful edits or spam links (don't mind though having relevant links though)
No, because there are new article checklist. If your article is bullshit, the editor will notice it and the article will be deleted.
Almost certainly that will bring you to the attention of anti-spam editors even faster than editing an existing article - depending on the quality of the article you wrote. Search for "How not to be a spammer" on wikipedia. #4 (as I write this) is "don't make a new article for your own product or Web site". Now, if you were looking over the list of "requested pages", saw one that was hugely relevant to your site, wrote an original, objective, and informative article for wikipedia, and cited articles on your site as a reference -- you very well might get away with it. Anything short of that is likely to be a waste of your time.
I added a few of mine embedded nicely in the article and they've been there for several months now. The key is in how you add the link. You can't detract from the obvious quality that wikipedia is going for.