SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is popular search topic on the web.  This is because your natural, or organic, search results – not the paid search ads – are based on your page rank (this is a Google term but something similar applies to the top 3 engines).  These organic results are the best and easiest way to drive traffic to your site.

Whether you are selling stuff, making money from your site through ads or donations, or just want people to read your blog you want traffic.  The more the better.  For years now the “gurus” have told new people to engage in link marketing.  In essence you, as the new site owner, goes to related blogs, forums, and wikis that established and you make meaningful contributions that include a link to your site.  After a while sites starting catching on that these links to other sites were lowering the page rank of the established site.  The result is that established sites started using the NO FOLLOW tag.  The link on an established site can still drive traffic to your site but it won’t improve your page rank so long as the NO FOLLOW tag is there.

Wikipedia started implementing a NO FOLLOW tag sometime back.  This was before I had a site or cared about SEO so I didn’t get too worked up about it.  However, a lot of people on the web made the argument that Wikipedia was the behemoth that it was because so many established sites included links to its articles – without the NO FOLLOW tag.

I started my wiki because I wasn’t happy with the content or organization of Wikipedia or the Wikibooks.  Neither site, in my opinion, was appropriate for advanced topics or examples.  I’ve made quite a few contributions to Wikipedia pages that I thought I could improve without wholesale re-write.  Now I’m having some of my edits backed out because of the external links to my site.  Admittedly these were edits solely to add links to related topics on my site.  However, my site includes exampels and MATLAB code not just the theory.

The Wikipedians argument is that I should just rewrite my content on Wikipedia.  I guess I’m selfish, I see no possibility of an upside for me and plenty of potential for a downside should I accidentally write something on Wikipedia I shouldn’t have – i.e. something my current or future employer doesn’t appreciate.

This reverting of edits by people who never bothered to judge my links in context and certainly are not subject matter experts has just pissed me off.  This on top of the NO FOLLOW tags and articles on the Edge makes me seriously question the utility of Wikipedia.  And the arrogance of many of the users.  Especially for subjects such as Engineering where you really do need subject matter experts and peer review.

I think my contributions to Wikipedia are over.  I will be making my contributions to places such as Knol.