I had the pleasure of interviewing a well-respected Wikipedia editor who specializes in Wikipedia articles about search engine optimization. He also happens to be an SEO consultant. His name is Jonathan Hochman. The interview covers a range of things including how to build up your reputation as an editor, how to deal with people trying to delete an article you authored, the Notability test, external links, photos and Creative Commons licensing, the Village Pump, and more. That interview is available as a 40 minute long podcast.

Download/listen to the MP3 » (18 Megs)

I incorporated parts of the interview into my SEO How To article for Practical Ecommerce Magazine last month -- "Can Wikipedia Help Your Business?" -- so be sure to check that out too.

Some of my favorite tips from the article, some of which come from me and some from Jonathan, include:

• Reputation is everything. Do this by building a solid history of edits that aren't self-serving.
• Engage with Wikipedians through your Talk page, their Talk page, and the Talk pages of entries you wish to contribute to.
• Create an informative User page to build credibility and boost social networking.
• When someone reverts your edit, seek clarification by asking them what you could do differently.
• Make sure any new entry includes references to back it up. If the entry is for an author, reference their book's ISBN number to support your case for notability. If the entry is for a company, link to a press mentions page on their website so that Wikipedians can establish level of notability.
• Monitor entries that are important to you by using the "watch" function within Wikipedia so that when you log in you will be alerted to any changes to those entries.
• After adding a new entry, build PageRank by internal links from other Wikipedia pages.

I blogged last month about Wikipedia and SEO. There are a number of considerations when making edits, creating entries, and passing the "Notability" test -- practices to avoid so you don't run afoul of their guidelines and so on.

Well folks, the game has changed. Wikipedia just instituted nofollows on all external links. This had already been in place for a while on some of their sister sites. This effectively removes a lot of the incentive to contribute to Wikipedia. Or does it? It does if your end goal is receiving PageRank to your own sites. But not if your goals are traffic (a top ranking Wikipedia page that links to you will still drive plenty of direct clickthrough traffic your way), credibility (companies with entries give the impression of being bigger and more legitimate), and reputation management (because a favorable Wikipedia entry for your company will probably occupy a spot in the top 10 in the SERPs for searches on your company name).

So are legitimate SEOs going to give up on contributing to Wikipedia? I hope not -- at least for the ones who are adding value to Wikipedia. I think we'd all like the spammers to leave (I certainly would!), and I know that is Jimbo Wales' intention, but I doubt that's what will transpire. Nofollowing blog comments didn't drive the spammers away; I can't see it working for Wikipedia. Especially as long as Wikipedia holds the top spot for important keywords such as "marketing" in Google. (sigh!)

More discussion on this development at SEOMoz.

It's getting a bit ridiculous how often Wikipedia shows up on the first page of Google for just about every search imaginable. Micropersuasion has noticed it for brand searches. Google's getting a bit lazy I think to give Wikipedia carte blanche access to page 1 of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Often times Wikipedia doesn't deserve to be there (like when it's only a stub, for instance).

But because Wikipedia does dominate the SERPs, it makes it pretty darned important for your company to have a good, balanced, accurate entry in Wikipedia. Not a stub. Not conspiracy theories written by crackpots.

Do you know what your Wikipedia page says about you? Better check it now:

Do you have all the "External Links" you deserve on that page? For example, I see on REI's entry there is no link to their REI-Outlet.com site, or to their REI Adventures site either. That's a missed opportunity -- both in terms of clicks and in terms of PageRank. Here's another example... on the Budget Group entry, I don't see a link to their Budget Truck Rental site at Budgettruck.com. When adding links, contribute other things too in the same edit, such as fixing typos, adding additional copy etc. That makes it less likely your changes will be reverted. External link only edits are looked on with suspicion, and rightly so, since most of those are spam.

Don't have a Wikipedia entry for your company? Then work towards getting one -- assuming you're noteworthy. (Don't just add your company's entry yourself, as it's against Wikipedia's NPOV guidelines.) Why is it good to have one? Because it's a lot easier to get internal links from other entries to your own. External Links are anathema to many Wikipedia editors. They much prefer internal links.

Because External Links are so hard to add (at least to make them stick, for longer than 5 minutes before Wikipedians delete them), try adding References. References are desperately sought after by Wikipedia editors. Indeed, many entries are flagged to display a big message at the top that "This article or section does not cite its references or sources. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations." So help out: add some references that back up assertions made in the entry, some of which could happen to be articles on your site (assuming they're relevant and add value to the entry). And of course you need to make your References links. Don't only add References linking to your own stuff, as that looks just a wee bit self-serving -- it will stick out like a sore thumb and your References will get nuked.

Surprisingly, despite the fact that anyone can edit anything, and can do it quickly and easily, Wikipedia maintains a high level of quality and accuracy. A study published in the academic journal Nature concluded that it is "nearly as accurate" as Encyclopaedia Britannica! That boggles the mind.

BTW, anyone notice how lousy Wikipedia's internal search engine is? Try searching for "recreational equipment inc" for example. Oops, "No page with that title exists"! Doh, you forgot to include the dot! ;-) Try "recreational equipment inc." instead and then it works. Ugh. SLI Systems, you guys should donate your "Learning Search" to Wikipedia. They need it bad.

When I blogged earlier this month about some things Matt Cutts from Google had to say about linking, I mentioned something called "cliques" from graph theory. Let me elaborate on this further...

I don't want to bore you all with Graph Theory (although if you're interested, you could read up on it in Wikipedia), so I'll cut to the chase. Simply look at the figure on the right taken on Wikipedia's clique definition page and you'll see that all 5 nodes (these are the signified as red dots and they can also be referred to as vertices) are all "linking" to all 4 of their neighboring nodes. They never miss a link. It all looks so perfect, doesn't it! Naturally occurring neighborhoods on the Web aren't perfect like that. If it looks perfect, it's been engineered. Google will be suspect to unnatural-looking neighborhoods.

So if you own a stable of web sites, think twice about linking every one of these websites to each other in a completely symmetrical fashion.

Imagine launching a website that your readers can actually edit. That in a nutshell is a "wiki." Sound scary?

Sometimes it goes horribly wrong. For instance, the LA Times launched a wiki for their editorials, then promptly removed it after it started getting defaced.

But then there are some amazing successes. The most oft-quoted wiki is Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia created entirely by its visitors and boasting over a half million entries. Here are some interesting stats on Wikipedia's growth: here and here.

But Wikipedia isn't really an example of a wiki used for marketing purposes. Here are a few examples that market or promote a product/service/company/destination:

• Channel 9 Wiki — Part of the MSDN (Microsoft Developers Network). Microsoft uses this to engage with techies worldwide and keep the dialogue going. I've even contributed to it myself then blogged about it.
• SEOGlossary.com — My company, Netconcepts, recently launched this wiki to provide a resource that is fluid and changeable as the SEO industry evolves. It's part of our consultative selling strategy.
• NYWiki — everything you'd want to know about people, places, and things in New York City. A privately-owned website. They make money off of Google AdSense advertising.
• NewPRWiki — a wiki on new forms of PR, started by communications consultant Constantin Basturea
• Memory Alpha — a wiki for die-hard Star Trek fans. They make money off of Google AdSense advertising.

Only the first two examples are really marketing initiatives.

Anyone have any more/better examples of wikis used in marketing?