Now, on a personal level, I’m a big fan of Wikipedia. I think it is one of the most organised and accessible information sites out there but because of the very nature of its editability, it is very open to abuse. However, the scale of abuse appears to be somewhat larger than expected!!

An American student, Virgil Griffith has developed a program called the Wikipedia Scanner which scans the IP addresses of those who have editted pages within Wikipedia and then cross-references them against a directory of IP address owners. Some of the findings are a little alarming:

- Apple edit Microsoft entries and Microsoft edits Apple entries, adding more negative comments about each other

- In the 9/11 Wikipedia article, the NRA added that “Iraq was involved in 9/11�

- The Vatican edits Irish Catholic politician Gerry Adams page

- UN address calls journalist Oriana Fallaci a racist ‘prostitute’

- FBI edits Guantanamo Bay, removing numerous pictures

Griffith has admitted that it’s impossible to be sure if the edits were made by someone working at one of the organizations, although the I.P. address reveals that they were made by someone with access to their network, he says.

“If the edit occurred during working hours, then we can reasonably assume that the person is either an agent of that company or a guest that was allowed access to their network,” he wrote.

To find out more, click here for the original article at MaltaStar.com.

There has been a lot of discussion recently regarding double-standards and even corruption from both Wikipedia and Google. To read some controversial comments, have a look at Ross Dunn’s recent article about Wikipedia and also Aaron Wall’s Google-based tirade. Both of these make strong cases questioning the working practices of each company, highlighting double standards and dubious practices.

Here at Metafocus, we deal with both Wikipedia and Google on an almost daily basis when working on both search engine optimisation (SEO Nottingham) and Pay Per Click advertising (PPC Nottingham). In both cases we have, at times, fallen foul of their somewhat over zealous and strict moderation. This in itself is not a problem, rules are rules, but if they are not adhering to those rules themselves, it can make things a little difficult to swallow.

How about some examples?

One of our clients is Belvoir Castle which is the official residence of David Manners, the 11th Duke of Rutland. The Duke also owns the Manners Arms Country Hotel and Restaurant so you would imagine that it would be acceptable to link from the Belvoir Castle page to either a Manners Arms page or even their website. Oh no, “too spammy” apparently, so we’ve had to work around this issue with eventually some success. We now have a link to Manners Arms website from the David Manners page, which links through to the Dukes of Rutland page which in turn links to a Belvoir Castle page! Phew, a lot of links there but as (currently) Wikipedia has such a high page ranking, it seems worth the effort. Throughout the process however we found ourselves pandering to the Wikipedia administrator to get their approval, which is understandable but a little frustrating also. (Is it just me or is Wikipedia being considered a more and more unreliable source by the day almost?)

A far more straight forward problem occured whilst setting up a Pay Per Click campaign for Duckworth Land Rover, an APPROVED new and used Land Rover dealership in Lincoln. The problem that we had was the use of terms like ‘Land Rover’, ‘Freelander’ and ‘Range Rover’ as these are trademarked names. Now, if you search for, for example: “second hand land rover uk” in Google you will see all kinds of ads, most of which are NOT for official Land Rover dealerships. We however had to provide official evidence that our client is allowed to use such terms. It didn’t stop there however. Every single use of those words in our keyword list had to be approved before the ads would display, causing a delay in getting the PPC running which lasted weeks rather than hours. Not exactly the instant results one would expect!

What conclusions can we draw?

At the end of the day, whether Google and Wikipedia abide by their own rules is by-the-by, it is us, the end user or online marketeer who has to jump through their hoops. It reminds me somewhat of my experinces with forums over the years. Those with Moderator status are afforded some kind of near-deity status which must be respected! Well, at the very least you must appease their wishes if you want to use their medium. My advice, learn the rules and abide by them wherever you can. If things don’t go smoothly, learn to be a little creative, it all pays off in the end.