I think the bigger issue is just that Google becomes even closer to a monopoly on information and the information being presented here is by design surface level. Maybe Wikipedia shouldn't care about surface level answers. They are designed for more detailed information.
Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019
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Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
And when fewer and fewer people are exposed to the donation banners/buttons on Wikipedia because they stop at the Google results page, how will Wikipedia keep running? It might be a non-profit, but donation banners _are_ ads, and denying Wikipedia its page views denies them donations in the same way it would deny other sites ad revenue.
Wikimedia Foundation mission is: >The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. The mission is NOT "get as much donation money as possible" and donations should exist to support the mission not vice-versa. Google seems to be helping in thei…
> The mission is NOT "get as much donation money as possible"
No, it's not, but it should go without saying that accomplishing the mission includes keeping Wikipedia alive and functioning. It would hardly be accomplished if Wikemedia goes under, leaving Google, Bing, DDG, and other search engines to either use out-of-date information, or worse: update that information through questionable practices.
I understand that Wikipedia is a non-profit organization. But that doesn't mean that they don't have costs that need to be paid, nor does it mean that they will celebrate shutting down and handing responsibility for their mission over to a for-profit company that has no concern for that mission.
Wikipedia has costs and needs to raise money to cover those costs. Caching results on Google search pages may reduce some hosting expenses, but that's only a gain so long as the money saved in server costs is more than the money lost from disappearing donations.
And an organization without consistent revenue (such as from selling a product or service) needs much more runway than an organization that can depend on sales to regularly replenish the bank account. Because when the Google and other search engines eliminate the last of Wikipedia's donations, the only factor in Wikipedia's lifespan is how much cash they have in their coffers. And the more donations they collect now, the longer the runway they will have.
Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
As the article points out, the problem isn't specifically that this harms Wikipedia, it's that this practice harms pretty much every for profit business that Google does this to. Pretty much every company in an established space that Google has entered, is losing traffic and thus revenue due to this practice: Yelp, any flight/hotel/tourism based company, video hosting sites, weather data sites, the list goes on and o…
>Yelp You had me feeling bad until I came across this.
If they do it to Yelp, imagine how bad it is for Yelp's less awful competitors. You can't ignore the iceberg just because the tip is a jerk.
Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019
#104Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019
#105> ...zero-click results have cost Wikipedia’s English language subdomain tens of millions of organic visits. > ...Google was able to steal over 550 million clicks from Wikipedia in six months... "Cost"? "Steal"?! This would make sense if Wikipedia were ad-supported. But Google saves Wikipedia money by requiring less servers to support traffic. And Wikipedia is open content , you literally can't steal from it -- being…
Doesn't less page views also mean less donations?
Or worse: less active users who edit content.
Up until now, an edit was one click away. Now, it's not only one more click away but wikipedia has no way to communicate that editing the result is possible at all.
Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019
#106I've definitely noticed that I"ve had to add "wiki" to my search results to see Wikpedia articles to certain subjects I'm searching for whereas in previous years, Wikipedia was almost always the number one result. I feel like I'm back in the 90s when Yahoo went from a pretty good search engine to mediocre with ads and stuff, and I marveled at the clean simplicity of Google. Now, I'm finding Google shows a bunch of ar…
If you have Firefox I would suggest that you go on Wikipedia.org, right-click the search box, click "Add keyword to this search", and pick a keyword. This makes it faster to find information that you know is on Wikipedia.
Chrome has had custom search engine keywords since day one (yes, I actually went to locate a day-one article on this feature[1]). Not sure why every time this topic comes up someone has to mention it as if it’s some sort of Firefox secret sauce, complete with weird replies like if you are “stuck on Chromium” you can emulate this with a pointless round trip to DuckDuckGo.
[1] https://searchengineland.com/searching-with-google-chrome-om...
Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019
#107I see a lot of misinformation in the comments here across multiple threads. Here are a couple sourced rebuttals.
> Featured snippets means no one clicks through to the source and thus underlying sites lose money.
Fact: Features snippets are optional for site creators and can lead to dramatically increased engagement in terms of sessions and CTR. [1][2]
> Weather.com in particular is hurt because it is ad supported no one leaves the Google page for weather.
Fact: The Weather Company happily partners with Google for this functionality. “The Weather Company, alongside governments, partner with Google to provide the world’s best weather solutions. We are happy to see Google continue to join with us and others in helping citizens stay informed.”[3]
[1] - https://searchengineland.com/seo-featured-snippets-leads-big...
[2] - https://blog.alexa.com/featured-snippets-in-search/
[3] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/...
Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't less page views also mean less donations?
The Wikimedia Foundation is not underfunded at all. What does worry me is that less page views may mean less engagement in the form of checking sources, flagging problems, and making edits.
There must be a bigger movement around contributing to Wikipedia, including financial rewards.
Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't less page views also mean less donations?
Or worse: less active users who edit content. Up until now, an edit was one click away. Now, it's not only one more click away but wikipedia has no way to communicate that editing the result is possible at all.
Wikipedia's editing software also makes editing very difficult.
Re: Wikipedia Lost 3B Organic Search Visits to Google in 2019
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't less page views also mean less donations?
The Wikimedia Foundation is not underfunded at all. What does worry me is that less page views may mean less engagement in the form of checking sources, flagging problems, and making edits.
Addendum: their revenue was actually following an upward trend as of their last report: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising/2018-19_Report#K...
But the number of new registered users and the number of user edits are both decreasing: https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects