WorldNetDaily, Newsbusters criticize Wikipedia while helping it

WorldNetDaily informs us that "Wikipedia scrubs Obama eligibility/Mention of citizenship issues deleted in minutes, 'offending' users banned" (wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91114). They're right about that, but at the same time as criticizing Wikipedia they also help that site by linking to it. The best way to deal with WP is to stop linking to it and encourage others to do the same. If WP loses enough links their entries might fall in the search results. By linking to them directly, WND is giving them a little "search engine juice", helping WP (to a small extent) maintain their search engine results position. And, that's not what you want to do.

If you need to link to WP, don't do it in the form of a regular, HTML link. If you must use such a link, at the least put a nofollow tag on the link. Better yet is to put it in plain text format, even adding a space. For instance:

en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Obama

I haven't tested it, but I'd imagine that a link in that format won't pass any "juice".

Also, NewsBusters joins in and stupidly (not a rare designation for that site) gives WP no less than six links including to valuable terms like Associated Press, Trinity United Church of Christ, and Jeremiah Wright: newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/03/08/wikipedia-scrubs-ayers-wright-obamas-page

As for the actual story, tell me about it. Back on January 16 I posted about how I'd changed my Wikipedia username. The reason for that was because after I'd posted a criticism of FactCheck on the Barack Obama talk page - not the entry itself, just the talk page - I found my old WP username blocked, my talk page post was deleted, and a disclaimer was posted on both my old and new user pages. More on that later.

Sun, 03/08/2009 - 21:29 · · Importance: 2