After teasing us with an unveiling seven months ago, Google finally opened up Google Knol to everybody. What does this mean? Depending on who you ask, it means higher quality content to index, the death of Wikipedia, and the rise of content thieves. It's also another step towards a Google monopoly. Keep reading for the details.
If you missed the original revelation of Google Knol, you might want to check our coverage of it. That article includes a definition of what a knol is, a close look at the sample knol Google was showing off at the time, and some analysis of the likely effects on SEO. I noted at the time that knols were probably the ultimate linkbait, and that if you're an expert in your field, this was your chance to write the introductory article that everyone would turn to when they want to know about whatever it is that you do. I also noted that links in a knol might not be nofollow (unlike Wikipedia links, which are nofollowed automatically), so they certainly had potential to earn you some traffic. As it turns out, I was wrong about that last point – but links to your knol from the Google Knol home page aren't nofollowed, and if your knol is featured on that page, it could mean lots of traffic.
I also mentioned some potential minuses to Google Knol. One of them was user authentication; how could Google be absolutely sure that a person writing a knol really is who they say they are? The second issue was spam, in that there didn't seem to be anything in place to keep a spammer from writing a knol and then using his or her friends to push it to a high ranking.
I shouldn't say “I told you so” at this point, even though I've seen some reports online that Google's user authentication isn't working. I didn't predict that spammers might steal someone else's content, post it to a knol as their own, and then manage to score higher in the SERPs than the original content. Has this happened yet? Not quite, but Aaron Wall's experience, which I'll discuss shortly, seemed to prove that it is at least possible.
By the way, if you're looking for an article on how to write a knol, this isn't it. I'll be analyzing, not instructing. If there is interest, I might write a knol and cover the process of doing so in a future article. If you're looking for something a little sooner than that, Elinor Mills at CNet did a piece on pit bulls for Google Knol and describes the process of writing a knol.
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