Favor (Google bomb!)
Here’s an “action item”…a favor.
Could you link to two specific Citizendium articles, “Butler” and “Telephone newspaper,” from your websites, home pages, or blogs, wherever they might be? And please use the specific text “butler” and “telephone newspaper”. You see, this is known as “Google bombing,” and it helps if the text is always the same. But we’re doing it for a good cause. Trust me! 
Here are HTML versions of the links:
<a href=”http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Butler”>butler</a>
<a href=”http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Telephone_newspaper”>telephone newspaper</a>
For an example of my own links to these pages, you can look at my personal home page (in the first paragraph).
Why? Well, it bothers me somewhat that Citizendium has a Google PageRank of 6. This is bound to increase, of course, merely with the passage of time. But a little push couldn’t hurt. Besides, I’d like to get the idea out there that it’s OK to link to CZ articles. 
This is a really, really low-down tactic. Wikipedia did not need Google-bombing to become successful, and Citizendium should not stoop so low to attempt use of this tactic either. It really detracts from the perceived professionalism of Citizendium.
Comment by illuminance — November 19, 2007 @ 10:19 am
Balderdash, “illuminance.” You’re telling me about something I know a lot more about than — well, than anyone else, period. When promoting Wikipedia in its first year — something I did quite a bit of — I strongly encouraged people to link to Wikipedia articles, and posted links to pages that linked to ours. No, I don’t remember any specific Google bombs, but link exchanges in order to boost our page rank would be just as “questionable” as a Google bomb. But as long as Google has the broken system in place that it does, there is nothing wrong with that.
Describing my link request as a “low-down tactic” makes sense only if you think I’m doing this as a “tactic” in order to compete with Wikipedia. But I’m not; that’s silly. We can’t compete traffic-wise with Wikipedia now, and it will be some time before we are able to. I’m simply trying to bring our PageRank, and traffic, closer in line with our objective value to readers.
Having people link far and wide to some of the best available articles online, especially in view of a broken system of highlighting the best available on the Web for various searches, is a perfectly ethical and professional thing to do, of course.
Comment by Larry Sanger — November 19, 2007 @ 11:48 am
So, am I right that links from Wikipedia don’t boost Google ratings? I think I heard that around here somewhere. What about mirrors of Wikipedia?
Someone has been going around adding links to CZ articles in the “external links” sections of Wikipedia articles. Those links are mirrored elsewhere, but do we get anything from them?
See the number of links we could get from one link at WP: http://www.google.com/search?q=citizendium+tecun+uman
Comment by Joe Quick — November 19, 2007 @ 10:47 pm
Wouldn’t it make more sense to link to as many CZ articles as are somehow related to your blog or website? Maybe it is not as effective in raising Google page ranks, but it does look not as silly as linking to a completely arbitrary article as http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Butler. (Unless, of course, you write about domestic service in grand houses).
Comment by Paul Wormer — November 20, 2007 @ 1:29 am
Folks, this appears to be an experiment, for goodness sake! Butler *does not even register* on Google when searching with “butler”, while Telephone newspaper appears in the #5 slot - this, although the CZ articles are far-far-and-away better.
Comment by Stephen Ewen — November 21, 2007 @ 1:11 am
a commercial license would bring us to number 1 people.
Comment by tom — November 21, 2007 @ 10:28 pm