How To Make Money Using Wikipedia...

Wikipedia is the world’s leading online encyclopedia that is totally free. It hosts an extremely large database information, with topics ranging from politics, environment, sciences, engineering, medicine to fun and games, miscellaneous activities, hiking etc. In short, it contains nearly everything you can imagine. And it provides really quality information too.

The great thing about Wikipedia is, it’s absolutely free! And it lets ordinary people like you and me to add or edit information. That does not mean you can write whatever you want. Your contributions have to be moderated before they can be added.

According to Alexa, Wikipedia ranks #6 globally, behind only websites like Google, Facebook, YouTube etc. That makes it the largest non-profitable website around. Notice the .org in its URL instead of a .com. Hence it’s not a commercial website. This non-profitability means that you can not earn money directly through Wikipedia. This is because they don’t make profit themselves, forget paying hundreds of thousands of contributors as well!

Link to Wikipedia

This is a long-term strategy. Linking to Wikipedia can be a real help in gaining search engine rankings. Google likes it when you link to authority websites. And since Wikipedia is the #6th website in the world, Google especially loves it if you do.

However, don’t just link to Wikipedia just for the sake of linking. You might end up being considered as a spammer by search bots. Link, but link relevantly. For example, if you have an article / blog post about, let’s say, sports cars, then it might be a good idea to list some sports cars and then prompt the reader to check out the car’s Wikipedia link for more information. Don’t just impose links on your readers.

Like I said, this is a long-term strategy. It won’t bring immediate traffic. But it will improve your Google Page Rank, and any other ranking systems like Alexa rankings etc. Once your page-rank climbs, you might find your blog on Google’s top 10 list in your respective niche, which is to say your blog might end up on the first page of search results returned to a surfer.

Contribute to Wikipedia

Now coming back to the adding and editing part, you might be wondering; What if I add or edit a piece of information? If you are clever and business-minded, you might have already guessed what I am hinting at. You can use Wikipedia to send traffic to your own blog and also build your backlinks!! Intrigued? Read on carefully!

Find and explore relevant articles

First of all, you need to find Wikipedia articles relevant to your niche. For example, find pages that contain information about a sports car if that’s what you are writing about. I am sure Wikipedia will almost always have something related to your post.

Then, you should read those articles, and explore more related articles. Find all possible places where you can add information about your website. For example, if your blog / website is about music, say it has tutorials on playing the piano or the guitar, then you can add a link or some information about your blog / website on a Wikipedia article about the piano (etc).

Tread carefully though! Getting past the moderation is a tough job. Not every piece of information you add / edit will be accepted. You might find your account and/or your IP address banned from the website.

So what to do then?

Here’s what you should do. Quality is of the utmost importance. Wikipedia is known for quality. They won’t just accept your contributions. You will need to provide quality information, and only then can you add links for your blog / website promotion.

Another way to avoid being banned / rejected is by being active in Wikipedia. Try to make multiple contributions, even on pages not related to your niche. Quality, of course is important. If you are a regular contributor, your works are likelier to be accepted. You can then safely add links to your site. But if you suddenly start adding information with links to your website, you will be banned as a spammer.

All of this seems and difficult. But trust me, the reward is well worth the effort. I mean think about, you will get backlinks from PR 9 pages! (which is the same rank as Google itself!). And think of all the traffic you might get from the world’s number 6th website! It’s just a matter of how far ahead you can think!