Get Targeted Traffic From Wikipedia

Here’s another tip to get traffic to your developed websites, and the cost is virtually free, aside from the time it takes you to actually do it.

We all know that Wikipedia is one of the most highly trafficked websites online. One reason is that it has a ton of content about millions of topics that cover just about everything. Another reason is that it has great search engine rankings, which is likely due to the amount and breadth of the content on the site. I often find Wikipedia outranking some of my own sites for certain topics.

If you review Wikipedia pages associated with the topic of your website, you can add external links to the bottom of Wikipedia pages. For instance, if you own a site that covers Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, you should add a link to the bottom of the main Philadelphia page. You can either call it your domain name .com or embed your link with anchor text. It’s no follow, so you won’t get search engine benefits, but you’ll likely receive traffic.

I would also recommend adding a link to relevant internal pages of your site on “deeper” Wikipedia pages since there will be generally less outbound links on those page than on the main page. For instance, you might want to add a link to your Independence Hall page on the associated Wikipedia page, again with the Philadelphia theme.

In addition to adding links to the external links section, your website can also be used as a reference if you can add information to articles. If you have information on your site that would enhance an article and you happen to be considered an  authoritative  website, you can post the info and link back to your website as the reference. This is great for traffic, too.

You don’t have to be a registered Wikipedia editor to post links, although they will give you more ability to have links stay on the site if you do register. You can’t add too many links all at once, or you’ll be banned for spamming the site.

It’s a good way to get free traffic to your sites.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

23 COMMENTS

  1. Marketers should familiarize themselves with our spam, promotion, and external link policies, so that their accounts are not blocked.

    * http://enwp.org/WP:SPAM
    * http://enwp.org/WP:PROMOTION
    * http://enwp.org/WP:EL

    Internal or ‘deep’ links have to meet our reliable source requirements.

    * http://enwp.org/WP:SOURCE

    And these are not appropriate unless the article is specifically about that company or subject.

    Please take the time to familiarize yourself with these policies. Cheers!

  2. @ JOpedia

    I agree… links should only be to authoritative websites, and when people insert information, it should add to the article and not just be self serving.

    Thanks for posting the guidelines.

  3. A lot of these links get deleted Elliot. I have watched it for years, with authoratative content, actually much more authoratative then the wikipedia entry. But mods there will delete a lot. On top of that other domainers who got their links deleted will go and delete someone else’s link.

    • @ RH

      That’s very possible. However, I do know that a couple of my sites receive a good amount of traffic because of links added by others. It may be hit or miss, but when you get a solid link, it can drive (free) traffic for a long time.

  4. Well, just make sure you don’t tell your readers about the Mediawiki “spam blacklist” and how that works. Your readers need not know about that. Good luck with your links, everyone!

  5. I think people are smart enough to know they shouldn’t post spam links.

    Oh… I see your own link that you embedded… I guess you are looking for traffic to your Examiner page.

  6. My Examiner pages got about 30,000 hits in the past 12 months. I’m pretty sure the one link from here will add at least 0.000318% to that total going forward. Thank you.

  7. @ Gregory

    Nope… actually that’s incorrect, and I am not affiliated with either of those websites/companies.

    The articles where I get links are referenced by “Wikipedians” and are sole/primary source articles that help enhance the articles from which they are linked.

    I guess you don’t have many better things to do than to try to find links to whatever sites I am referring to. Well, go right ahead and take up your time on this worthy cause finding links that reference these sites and edit those articles as you see fit.

  8. Hmm… on my wiki site that I own, we just passed 972,000 unique visits since launch. Now that we’ve established the “pissing contest” mentality that is so popular on Wikipedia, do you want to explain to readers why it is you won’t divulge the specific Wikipedia links that are driving the most traffic to your sites, or will you prove me wrong and divulge them?

    (I’m not sure you know which “team” I’m playing for here, Elliot, but if you want to keep bashing me, that’s fine by me. I’m used to it from Wikipedia.)

    • @ Gregory

      I don’t care to be involved in any type of pissing contest. I don’t see a reason why you felt it was necessary to discuss your traffic numbers before or in the latest post. I have no need to do so.

      The reason I won’t reveal the pages/links is because I wouldn’t want some vindictive Wikipedia editor to show his or her power and take down the links out of spite because I’ve said that it brings my sites traffic. I am sure you could easily find the articles since you know your way around Wikipedia better than I.

      I would imagine we both have better things to do though than to keep this going (ie going for a run in Central Park before the Corporate Challenge).

      People should clearly not add spammy links to Wikipedia and the links should add value to the article. If they spam or don’t add value, it’s likely that the links will be erased and perhaps the user banned from posting.

  9. I’ve done that trick before for extremely authoritative sites, but there’s always some pretentious douche editor who removes them after a week or two. Wikipedia nerds take themselves way too seriously.

  10. “The reason I won’t reveal the pages/links is because I wouldn’t want some vindictive Wikipedia editor to show his or her power and take down the links out of spite because I’ve said that it brings my sites traffic.”

    That one comment speaks volumes about Wikipedia.

  11. Elliot, thanks for taking the policy seriously. Don’t mind the disgruntled editors. Wikipedia can be a tough community and not everyone thrives in it. Cheers!

  12. I guess as long as other “Wikipedians” are adding the links to your domains on their own volition, as a minor aspect to their editing overall, that’s got to be okay with the powers that be over there. I think what they don’t take to fondly are the link-pushers who seem to be on Wikipedia just for that one purpose. For example, look at this clown:

    http://www.webcitation.org/5zUxTBTWI

    • @ Gregory

      Contrary to your opinion based on a very short interaction with me, I’m not usually too combative.

      Unfortunately, I won’t have the time (or really the desire) to read/review your e-book. I am sure it’s going to be well written, but I don’t have nearly as much interest in Wikipedia as you seem to have.

      If you want to learn about how people are making real money in the domain investment business, you might want to check out Morgan Linton’s new domain flipping e-book.

      As one can imagine, Dreidel.com isn’t such a lucrative website, but I’ve turn down a couple of significant offers for it in the last two years. Eventually someone will make me an offer I can’t refuse. Sadly, I haven’t given it any attention in a couple years due to other projects of mine.

      Good luck with all of your future ventures.

  13. I’ve learned a few things about Wikipedia traffic…

    1) If you own the bang-on .com domain that matches the article title and your site is even remotely credible/useful, you’ll probably avoid the editorial pissing match. The same cannot be said for e-(ArticleTitle)World.info, regardless of what site has the better content and development scheme.

    2) Wikipedia traffic is only sightly less bouncy than porn traffic.

    3) Hunch: In spite of being nofollow since 2007 or so, I suspect there is some targeted SE weight to them, even though Cutts has directly said there isn’t. But he presented an odd hedge, where certain baked-in editorial trust factors might allow them to selectively flow pagerank. I’m guessing this is up to the individual site (blogs, forums, wikis) to build into their editorial protocols, but the Google algo is smart enough and Wikipedia is transparent enough on the editorial side that it leaves one wondering if Google isn’t accounting for the editorial quality of wikipedia links, on a case by case basis, in some way.

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