Fortunately, this does not happen entirely arbitrarily. The basic criteria that an entry on Wikipedia has to meet are formulated relatively clearly by the platform. Central to this are the so-called relevance criteria, which determine what is allowed in and what is not. The criteria are coherent, although they always provide material for discussion.
How it Works?
When it comes to clarifying terms or obtaining information, the online lexicon Wikipedia has become the first point of contact on the Internet. But there are also other wikis on specific topics that explain a series, a film and other content in more detail. With a few handles you can create your own wiki.
Why is Wikipedia Important?
Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia for knowledge expansion. An entry about your own company or your own person enhances the image and brings advantages in search engine ranking because the Wikipedia article for a search query is usually the first link that is displayed on Google. In addition, the link in the entry can increase the page rank of the website.
The Simple Proof of Identity
To ensure that nobody pretends to be a company representative, user profiles must be verified in some Wikipedia languages. If you want to be an active language then you must know how to Create a Wikipedia Page. You have to send a short email to the Wikipedia support team to stay active on any language. There, trusted community members check whether the message comes from an official domain and, for example, contains a correct signature. There is no further proof of identity.
Entry in Wikipedia
Before entry is published in Wikipedia, it must pass the “incoming inspection”. The contribution is checked for relevance. For each topic, there are certain relevance criteria that should be considered when writing the article. Most of the time a criterion has to be fulfilled, which has to be confirmed by credible sources (like press or reviews in specialist magazines). You also need a user profile as an author in Wikipedia. The guidelines for writing a Wikipedia article must also be strictly followed. There are strict requirements regarding the formatting and the source of the texts.
Content is the Key to Success
In addition to the numerous hurdles, the top rule in Wikipedia is: Never advertise! Even if the overall picture of the article contributes to your company’s PR work, the platform is an information portal, an encyclopedia. The content of a topic is in the foreground and should bring added value. So it’s about content, not advertising.
5 Steps to the Wikipedia Entry
Create a user profile as a Wikipedia author and then you can create an article as follows.
- Review topic: Before writing your article, make sure that your topic has not already been covered. Research saves you a lot of work.
- Note relevance: Pay attention to the relevance criteria. This reduces the risk that your article will be rejected.
- Cite sources: Each type of source must be specified, whether scientific or non-scientific. It is best to link your sources with footnotes.
- Write a contribution: Create your article in the user room. This prevents the entry from being simply deleted. Stick to the correct format and pay attention to spelling and grammar. You can find more tips for your article in this Wikipedia article.
- Publish article: When you have written your article, click on “Save article” and release your entry for review: Incoming inspection. You will be notified if something is wrong with the post. Otherwise, this should be published after some time.
There are a number of things to consider in order for a contribution to be accepted as a Wikipedia article. Follow these tips and the Wikipedia guidelines. Then your contribution will probably have a good chance of being published.