Experts question whether Wikipedia has too much prominence on Google

Google remains one of the planet's leading search engines, attracting millions of traffic every day. However, it has been questioned by some experts whether the search engine gives too much prominence to Wikipedia over other websites.

A new study undertaken by Intelligent Positioning, highlighted that in many cases, Google seem to favour Wikipedia in its search findings. For 99 per cent of searches on Google UK, Wikipedia appears on page one according to research of 1,000 randomly generated search terms. The ramifications are great if you are creating SEO content, as it could mean that whatever terms you are using, you will also lose out on a top spot to Wikipedia.

The data of the study revealed that of the 99 per cent appearances of Wikipedia on the first page, 96 per cent of the entries were found in the top five positions. Looked at in even detail, it is noted that 56 per cent of searches have Wikipedia placed at number one, whilst the online encyclopaedia appears in second place for 24 per cent of searches.

Though it is unsurprising that Wikipedia provides lucrative search results for many informational terms, experts have highlighted that there are cases where some of the website's lower quality pages still appear high in the rankings, even though they have little content on them.

Wikipedia remains the undeniable king of content for Google search, and in many cases offers readers with the ideal answer to their questions. However, for those developing marketing strategies, looking at Wikipedia search terms will help define keywords that could be used for SEO content.