Google Knol Takes Aim at Wikipedia, Others - Knol as Wikipedia Killer
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Everybody except Google is describing Google Knol as the Wikipedia killer. While Wikipedia authors are anonymous, knol authors are verified and accountable. Medical articles are written by real doctors. Take the article titled “Migraine: Mechanisms and Management.” The author, Richard Kraig, is a neurologist and neuroscientist at the University of Chicago Medical Center. The first thing that shows up on a search of his name is his bio with the medical center.
On top of this, only the author can edit his or her own knols. Others can propose edits, but the author has full control over the knol. Google doesn't even edit the knols, but authors may, at their discretion, allow Google to include ads in their knol. The search engine will share revenue with authors who allow the display of ads.
Right off the bat, that raises “conflict of interest” flags. If Google is getting income from knols, wouldn't it be tempted to rank these higher than other sites? The search engine claims that it won't do this, because, after all, it would be evil. But Danny Sullivan noticed something very peculiar concerning knols and their search engine ranking. A day after Google Knol went into public beta, Sullivan did searches for the titles of 30 knols on the Google Knol home page. Before I tell you the results, keep in mind that one day should be too early to be ranking in the SERPs, especially for competitive terms targeted by long-standing web sites.
The results? One-third of those 30 knols hit the first page of Google's SERPs for their title. As Sullivan put it, “It's proof that being in Knol is NOT an automatic ride to the top of the search results. But then again, knowing that 33% of your stuff will rank within a day is a pretty good track record.” Sullivan further notes that back links might be helping knol rankings more than one can easily determine (remember, Google doesn't show all back links).
It appears that Google trusts knols more than they trust content on the web at large. Reading between the lines, creating more trustworthy content seems to have been Google's intention all along when they created Google Knol. But that doesn't mean that the content actually IS more trustworthy than what's already out there, as Aaron Wall discovered.
Next: Does Knol Encourage Content Theft? >>
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