Google has launched its Wikipedia-killer to the world. Will they succeed?

Last week Google made its new site, Knol, open to all the world. Until then only beta-testers had been able to read and contribute.

Knol lets anyone write an article about any topic of interest.

Then readers may make comments and rate the article. They may also may suggest addition and rewrites, but the first author retains control of the text.

The author has the last word

It is the empowerment of the first author that makes Knol different from the Wikipedia. In the Wikipedia anyone may (normally) go in and edit and expand on an article.

In Knol the author may reserve the right to accept or reject such rewrites. This is called “Moderated Collaboration” by Google.

This alternative way of doing it means that some of the articles become less like the authoritative and scholarly encyclopedia articles we find in the Wikipedia, and more like essays.

Google encourages you to include with a large number of weighty references, but they do not force you. This means that there are room for more personal texts here, and more than one article on any particular topic.

Google clearly hope that the best articles will float to the top, based on traditional link analysis, the number of comments made and (presumably) traffic.

Still, it could be that some users will find Knol less trustworthy compared to the Wikipedia because of this somewhat more flexible regime. On the other hand, many readers may find more personal articles refreshing.

Simplistic design

The design is very simplistic and boring in a 1990’s kind of way. It is transparent and uncluttered, though, and easy to navigate.

There is a content box with an index at the top of the left hand main column, followed by the text itself. To the right is a short biography of the author (if he or she has included one) and a list of other contributors, followed by links to reviews.

The search field covers Knol only, but we are pretty confident that the Knol articles will quickly find their way into the Google index.

Knols will have to compete with the rest of the web

We do not believe Google will give them special treatment search engine ranking wise, though.

This means that the number and quality of web pages linking to the articles will mean a lot.

Given Wikipedia’s head start, this means that Wikipedia articles covering the same topics normally probably will rank higher than Knol’s for a long time.

Why would anyone like to write for Knol?

TechCrunch makes a big deal out of Google’s kind offer of sharing the AdSense revenue with the author, and thinks that this will lead to a large number of articles on popular topics and relatively few on more narrow subjects.

We are not so sure about this. There probably will be some people out there that will start writing articles on popular topics in order to get some advertising revenue, but the competition will be fierce and only the best articles will rank well.

The rest will soon find that a one page article on the Web does not bring in much revenue. You will have to write many to make a difference, even i Knol becomes a hugely popular web destination.

We think writers will be more motivated by other factors:

1. Fame. An article on Knol may make you and your expertise known world wide. We already see serious researchers and scientists publish on Knol because of this. Over at Wikipedia they are anonymous. Here they can brand themselves with a picture and a biography.

2. Evangelicalism. Whether you are passionate about rice puddings or breast feeding; here is your chance to reach an audience. People who do not have their own sites or blogs, may use Knol to express themselves. The social aspect of Knol, including the feedback from readers, will definitely make some potential authors more motivated.

3. Web site promotion. We have not seen much of this yet, but it will become very tempting indeed to write an article on a topic relevant to your site. (Note to self: Write Knol on web searching…) There is nothing to stop you from including a link to your own site.

4. Search engine marketing. Knol can obviously also be used for search engine marketing purposes for the very same reason: You may include links to your own sites or the sites of your SEM clients.

However, if these are just spammy link collections they will not rank well, and links from these articles will have close to no positive effect on the rankings of the pages they link to.

Google will have to apply the same rules to Knol as to any other site. Duplicate content can, for instance, not be rewarded.

Spamming Knol

We guess we will soon see a large number of articles on how to use Knol to spam the search engines. Please note though that Google has become pretty good at identifying spam, and that there is no such thing as a free lunch in this area.

However, if you are willing to write a content rich, high quality, article on a topic, it could become an efficient tool for some search engine marketing purposes, especially as regards the promotion of informational sites.

It might be less efficient as a tool for marketing products and services. If you write an article on lawn movers and include only one link — i.e. to the home page of your own brand — you can be sure that your competitors will link to theirs in the comment field.

So far the links in the comment fields are not “nofollowed”, meaning that they count search engine ranking wise.

On the other hand, this means that we will soon find search engine marketers becoming avid commentators over at Knol, boasting to their clients about how many links they have generate for them over at Knol. Watch out, folks! Links to your Viagra site form the most popular Knol on Roman Catholicism may backfire.

Is Knol a Wikipedia killer?

We do not think Knol will be able to dethrone the Wikipedia, for the simple reason that Knol is something different.

With time it may become a useful supplement to the Wikipedia, though, and an alternative source of information.

If Google manage to generative a living social community over at Knol, Knol might even bring in a lot of knowledgeable writers.

Is Knol a useful tool at the moment?

There are far to few articles over at Knol right now to use it as an independent tool for intelligence gathering. That will probably change.

What is more serious is that Google has not included navigational tools beyond the search field. Authors are not asked to tag the articles, so Google cannot generate a tag cloud for the front page, helping browsers find their way around the site.

At the moment there is only an eclectic selection of articles included on the front page, and we do not know how they are selected.

Nor are the authors asked to put their articles into specific categories, making it hard to give Knol a directory structure.

This lack of structure will make it harder to navigate the site, and it will also make it harder to encourage more socially oriented readers to become active commentators. Such valuable contributors deserves help to identify what articles may be worth their attention.

And the name?

We continue to think that the name sounds a bit daft, even if we do see the reference to “knowledge”.

And we find it very strange that Google has chosen a name for where the dot com domain is owned by someone else. We are sure the German machinery company Knol will get a lot of unwanted traffic, because of this.

How much are you willing to pay the Germans for the knol.com domain, Google?

See also Phil Bradley’s presentation of Google’s Knol, which includes links to other articles on the topic.
Knol is open to everyone Google Blog