Wikipedia is wonderful, huh? If you need to look up some quick information about the Roman Empire, Wikipedia is there for you. If you want to find out whether or not Alexander the Great was, in fact, great, Wikipedia is your man. When I was teaching, I always warned my students that, while the site is a great place to get some cursory information, it is still user-generated content and so you should exercise caution. It’s not the be-all and end-all of information.
That being said, it’s a great place for bloggers to do a little bit of quick research that can lead them to some really solid sources. And if you’re blogging about a subject that might not be familiar to the vast majority of your readers, then including a Wikipedia link or two is a good way to help your readers get a quick idea of how the topic applies to your post. If you start loading up on Wikipedia links to really obvious things, however, there’s a good chance you’re making a horrible impression on your readers instead.
I love blogs — writing them, reading them, sharing them, etc. For the last 13 years, blogs and blogging have been an integral part of my life. It’s just been lately I’ve noticed this Wikipedia link business becoming a more and more common thing to do. Instead of finding links of value, I’ll be reading an article and find Wikipedia links to things like…
- television
- internet
- social media
- computer
- United States of America
- Apple
- blogs/blogging
And those are only a few. When I see stuff like that, this is basically how I feel as a reader:
The Problem With “Common” Wikipedia Links
Here’s the thing: as someone who writes blog posts, I understand that these links are not included for reader benefit. They’re included because you use some kind of tool that is automatically generating outbound links to Wikipedia pages. They’re included for reasons that are probably SEO-based (I’m certainly not an SEO specialist, so that’s just a hunch). Whatever your reasons are, it’s probably not because you think your reader actually needs a definition of “television.”
But as a reader, I find these links insulting. Truly. And I can’t be the only one. What good is a high ranking page if you’re driving your readers away by insulting their intelligence? If someone is reading your blog, it’s pretty safe to say that they’ve got the basic concepts of “blog” and “internet” down. If they’re reading it on a smart phone — possibly even an iPhone — then they’ve got that one down too. And if they came across the link being shared on a social media site? Yep. They understand what social media is.
It’s unsettling. These very basic things that bloggers are linking aren’t things that require definitions or additional information. And in most cases, I’d argue that even if you do think a definition could be used, unless it’s something most readers really aren’t going to know, trust your readers to research for themselves. Going down the rabbit hole is part of what makes the internet so much fun.
But here’s the other thing. If a reader arrives at your article to see that every fourth word or so is linked (whether it’s one paragraph or the whole post), regardless of your intentions, it looks spammy. Maybe it’s just me, but if an article looks spammy, I’m not inclined to really trust the information on it, nor am I inclined to hang around for very long.
So am I suggesting that all Wikipedia links are bad? Not at all. I’m saying be smart about the Wikipedia links you use. Think of reader experience and what’s actually going to provide some kind of value for them. If you find yourself justifying a Wikipedia link to “telephone” by saying “Well, a nine year old who has never seen a rotary phone and is doing a school project might benefit from that link,” you’re trying too hard to justify it. Especially if there’s no reason a reader with that particular description would ever be on your site anyway.
If you’re going to write, write for people. Don’t write for robots and algorithms. Is SEO important? Sure. (Although I’m not really sure if this practice is doing anything for SEO, but again, I’m not a specialist.) But if you’re going to drive your readers away in the process of doing it, then it might be time to reevaluate your strategy.
image #1 source: Wikimedia Commons
image #2 source: http://humorinrecovery.tumblr.com/