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There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis

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Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis

#21

Post by ButlerianJihad »

LoganDark wrote: post #17

Anyone remember when "Fandom" was called Wikia? It really started going down the gutter when it started TikTokifying itself by trying to act as an entertainment hub. It was supposed to be a neutral resource for people to build community-driven knowledge bases but it turned into some real gamified garbage. I've never really been comfortable with the concept of addressing a "fandom" as one whole anyway, even in general…

Fandom probably hosts more copyrighted images and media than the Internet Archive does.

Entertainment studios can often turn a blind eye to use of their properties when it's by fans, for fans, and promotes those franchises. They are not sending C&D to people making avatars, or cosplaying, or memeing their screengrabs into notoriety.

It is weird to think that the WMF and Wikia/Fandom had a common founder and origin.

Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis

#22

Post by jimnotgym »

I'm going to agree.

I launched a website that is niche a few weeks ago, but totally unique. After a couple of weeks search console wakes up to tell me that they have indexed one page in 80. And that the top search term that is finding my site says exactly the name of one of my pages, yet Google is showing my homepage in search!

Way to help your users

Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis

#23

Post by cookmeplox »

fergie wrote: post #20

I am slightly on the fence about this. If the goal is simply to provide a good platform for people to create and share information with each other, then it shouldn't matter if the wiki is indexed in Google or not, in fact "invisibility" might even increase the quality of contributions. OTOH if the goal is to monetize other people's contributions then yes, I totally get why the "Google jail" would be bad for that, but…

I think this logic falls apart if you realize that wikis only "work" when you're able to get some of the readers to turn into long-term contributors, and losing 90% of your traffic by not showing up on Google is a great way to kill that funnel.

There's a ton of historical evidence of wiki migrations (1) starting out with all of the editors and none of the readers, (2) not doing anything to get those readers to the new site, and (3) ultimately losing the whole war because the reader->editor flow was still happening on the Fandom wiki. "Invisibility" is absolutely not desirable here, even if your only goal is maximizing the amount of good contributions.

Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis

#24

Post by einpoklum »

jimnotgym wrote: post #22

I'm going to agree. I launched a website that is niche a few weeks ago, but totally unique. After a couple of weeks search console wakes up to tell me that they have indexed one page in 80. And that the top search term that is finding my site says exactly the name of one of my pages, yet Google is showing my homepage in search! Way to help your users

> Way to help your users

Dear Jim,

At Google, our intent is to help our stockholders, not our users.

Sincerely,

Alphabet inc.

Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis

#25

Post by einpoklum »

nephihaha wrote: post #7
KingMob wrote: post #5

This is a shame because Fandom is frequently terrible, but also consumes all the oxygen.

It depends on which part. It is certainly heading down the same route as Wikipedia with all the problems that entails. You're usually better off on a smaller Fandom wiki as it won't have beeb taken over yet. The James Bond wiki is particularly bad, but Memory Alpha seems to be better run.

> It is certainly heading down the same route as Wikipedia with all the problems that entails.

Can you elaborate on what that means? i.e. what aspect of Wikipedia, and in what way Fandom is heading there?

Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis

#26

Post by jdranczewski »

fergie wrote: post #20

I am slightly on the fence about this. If the goal is simply to provide a good platform for people to create and share information with each other, then it shouldn't matter if the wiki is indexed in Google or not, in fact "invisibility" might even increase the quality of contributions. OTOH if the goal is to monetize other people's contributions then yes, I totally get why the "Google jail" would be bad for that, but…

I think it's fair to say that if the wiki's intent is to share information with people, you want people (and not just the inner circle of those in the know) to be able to find it. And the way most people find things is on Google.

Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis

#27

Post by rob74 »

nephihaha wrote: post #7
KingMob wrote: post #5

This is a shame because Fandom is frequently terrible, but also consumes all the oxygen.

It depends on which part. It is certainly heading down the same route as Wikipedia with all the problems that entails. You're usually better off on a smaller Fandom wiki as it won't have beeb taken over yet. The James Bond wiki is particularly bad, but Memory Alpha seems to be better run.

Well at least Wikipedia doesn't pester you with tons of ads that sometimes make it hard to even find the content (except for the occasional donation banner, but that's a minor annoyance compared to what Fandom does).

Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis

#28

Post by phyzix5761 »

einpoklum wrote: post #24
jimnotgym wrote: post #22

I'm going to agree. I launched a website that is niche a few weeks ago, but totally unique. After a couple of weeks search console wakes up to tell me that they have indexed one page in 80. And that the top search term that is finding my site says exactly the name of one of my pages, yet Google is showing my homepage in search! Way to help your users

> Way to help your users Dear Jim, At Google, our intent is to help our stockholders, not our users. Sincerely, Alphabet inc.

That's every company

Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis

#29

Post by mrweasel »

jimnotgym wrote: post #22

I'm going to agree. I launched a website that is niche a few weeks ago, but totally unique. After a couple of weeks search console wakes up to tell me that they have indexed one page in 80. And that the top search term that is finding my site says exactly the name of one of my pages, yet Google is showing my homepage in search! Way to help your users

Yet you can be absolutely sure that Google is training their AI products on the same pages they do not want to show to their search users.

Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis

#30

Post by rob74 »

KingMob wrote: post #5

This is a shame because Fandom is frequently terrible, but also consumes all the oxygen.

One hand washes the other: they buy ads from Google (I think), so Google prefers them in the indexing process, so they get more traffic, so Google prefers them even more.
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