WikiSpamia: The Art of Spamming Wikipedia

For those of you thinking of using Wikipedia to gain links to your site, think again.

[Don't link to] a website that you own or maintain, even if the guidelines above imply that it should be linked to. This is because of neutrality and point-of-view concerns; neutrality is an important objective at Wikipedia, and a difficult one. If it is relevant and informative, mention it on the talk page and let other — neutral — Wikipedia editors decide whether to add the link.

While it hasn't happened yet, Wikipedia is thinking of creating a spammers list to call out people who routinely try to insert links to their site(s).

As an organization (if you can even call it that), Wikipedia is not set up to "work with" other organizations such as Google. However, there has to be some way to develop a page Google and others can use that will list offending links. The Foundation's blacklist might be a start.

Consider the spam-chilling power of a warning template that says, in bold:

In addition to being banned, if you continue to add spam links to Wikipedia, your links may be published on our list of repeat offender spam links. This list is publicly accessible to search engines and is sometimes used by search engine operators to identify search engine spammers for deletion from their rankings. Wikipedia is not responsible for search engine actions; contact the search engine operator directly if you have any questions.

This tactic could be interesting, though I think would be rife with unintended consequences. How easy would it be to go to the local library and use their computers to insert dozens of links to one of your competitors. Wikipedia would not be able to track the IP address to any particular individual but might make the assumption that the the links were placed by a representative of the site itself, causing that site to be moved to the spammers list. If Google (and other) search engines get a hold of that list, as the Wikipedia page noted above suggests would happen, the result might be disastrous for a completely innocent site.

I don't advocate those kind of tactics against competitors, but there are many who do. And in a competitive industry it might even be worth a plane ticket to the competitor's home town library so the IP tracers will see the local connection with the presumed spammer.

Wikipedia does have a right to keep their site pure, but they need to consider the ramifications, intentional or not.

Source: Joost de Valk