Google Knol poised to be the Wikipedia killer, a PPC Perspective
Jul 23, 2008 Google Adwords, PPC Programs
The latest Google project to hit the scene is dubbed “Knol” and is, quite frankly, the one project the guys over at Wikipedia, Mahalo, and Yahoo Answers should watch extremely closely. From an SEO perspective, Google search algorithms have always favored Wikipedia articles because they are unbiased (arguable), comprehensive (when not edited to death), and more or less the best one-stop solution for most search users. That’s about to change…
Leave it to the engineers at Google to try their hand at everything under the sun. If you haven’t been paying attention to what happens in the online world, it’s quite common for Google to reinvent the wheel - only better. In fact, Google has often been the one company to try their best at a competitive solution to innovative tools first and foremost, and then acquire the leader in the industry. Such has been the case with several Google beta projects such as Google Video and YouTube, Google Analytics and Urchin, Google Adsense for Referrals and DoubleClick Performics, and the list goes on.
Back to Knol…
Knol is likely the result of feeling the competitive pressure from similar projects such as Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, and yes, maybe even Mahalo (but I hate to give Jason Calacanis credit). I’ve blogged about it before, and someone at Google was probably listening. There is ad revenue to be found in a project like Knol.
What is one thing that Wikipedia does wrong? Excluding the possibility for sponsored Wikis, removing marketing lingo, and filtering out much of what makes an entry profitable for both the publisher and the discussion host. Would a sponsored entry be more relevant and come from more credible sources? I don’t know for sure, but why not let people decide?
In the pay-per-click marketing industry, we’ve already seen a significant shift in user behavior over the past few years. More and more search users are favoring sponsored results because advertisers put far more effort into their landing pages than many pages Google algorithms favor. Advertisers are often forced to satisfy the needs of many in order to keep bounce rates low, conversion rates high, and ad quality scores from impacting their CPC.
So how does this relate to Knol?
I’m willing to bet that advertisers can do just as good of a job, if not a better job, at creating knowledge base articles and authoritative posts than any neutral (and sometimes neutered) third party writer. If Google is really serious about Knol being a contender in the Wikipedia-dominated space, it should definitely open the door to advertisers and let the public decide what they favor.
At the very least, Knol will certainly be another prime Google property just waiting for Content Network ads. It may even start out that way once a critical mass of content is created, until then we can only guess what Google engineers might have up their sleeves.
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