The most interesting part here is that this isn't really an SEO problem anymore, it's a dependency problem
There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
91–100 of 238 posts
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#92Some of this might just be problems with the websites themselves. With the Path Of Exile 2 Wiki example, I'm looking at the sitemaps. Once you get through the first sitemap of nested sitemaps (ugh, not a fan of those), the very first actual sitemap returns: XML Parsing Error: no root element found Location: https://www.poe2wiki.net/sitemap/sitemap-poe_wiki-poe2_wiki--NS_0-0.xml Line Number 18040, Column 1 (EDIT: Of c…
The sitemap issues are definitely worth fixing, but I don't think they explain the most interesting part: the same kind of wiki seems to behave very differently depending on whether it's on a fresh root domain or an established subdomain.
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#93[flagged]
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#94Some of this might just be problems with the websites themselves. With the Path Of Exile 2 Wiki example, I'm looking at the sitemaps. Once you get through the first sitemap of nested sitemaps (ugh, not a fan of those), the very first actual sitemap returns: XML Parsing Error: no root element found Location: https://www.poe2wiki.net/sitemap/sitemap-poe_wiki-poe2_wiki--NS_0-0.xml Line Number 18040, Column 1 (EDIT: Of c…
Me again! I couldn't figure out why I was getting transient errors on that Poe2wiki sitemap, so I tried looking at other sitemaps on the site. I'm getting transient errors on all of them. Then I realized - the sitemap files are being overwritten in real time. Every edit on the Wiki is causing the sitemap file to be edited in real time. That's why the sitemaps sometimes stop right in the middle of a filename when I ac…
Though weirdly it makes the subdomain result even more interesting: presumably those wikis are rewriting their sitemaps too, yet Google manages to index them normally
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#95> Subdomains of existing domains are totally fine Damn, another push to centralizing and walling off user content in 'fandoms', 'reddits' and other closed communities? Have the internet cards been handed out now, and are we in the end-game? Will old domains resell for premiums like low-background-radiation steel?
The really perverse bit is that this rewards exactly the kind of consolidation Google's anti-spam changes are presumably meant to fight
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#96> Subdomains of existing domains are totally fine Damn, another push to centralizing and walling off user content in 'fandoms', 'reddits' and other closed communities? Have the internet cards been handed out now, and are we in the end-game? Will old domains resell for premiums like low-background-radiation steel?
It wouldn't surprise me. It seems like a mirror of the social media move from social graphs to recommendation engines. You are either producer or consumer and never shall consumer be promoted organically.
Search used to feel more like infrastructure: put something useful on the web, link to it, and eventually people could find it
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ne…
Yes, but the point is that maybe in 2026 we should be looking at ways to pay contributors/creators, rather than steal from them (slightly hyperbolic, but you get the gist)
The financialisation of all hobbies is extreemely toxic and that's what you're perpetuating here.
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#98The bar has been raised on all web content for Google to index, esp new domains like you say but even some subdomains. That answer is quality content (higher than AI or human medians), links and pr and social activity and mentions, and then user experience.
Google may actively prefer AI slop over human quality content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II2QF9JwtLc
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#99Anyone 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…
I remember when it was called Wikicities.
Re: There's a new "Google Jail" for independent wikis
#100When I still payed Dota, there was a wiki hosted on fandom.
The experience was terrible. It wasn't always update-to-date with the latest patch, and on mobile there were so many ads rendering the whole thing unreadable.
The catch is that there was a better wiki, called Liquipedia. But Google never showed it first and I kept getting tricked to click that shitty fandom site.
(It was years ago. But I just tested it a bit and for most Dota-related keywords, fandom is still ranked higher than liquipedia. I don't know if the quality of fandom site has improved though.)