Wikidata.org is an initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation (the same folks that created and operate Wikipedia.org).
What I like about Wikidata (from a purely SEO perspective) – is that creating an organisation or brand page and getting is approved (so that is sticks in the long term) – is a lot easier than getting a page on Wikipedia.
Getting a brand or organization page on Wikidata is not difficult – and its easier to jump through the hoops and have your page stick in the long run.
Since Wikidata.org has a lot of trust and authority – you can also use your Wikipedia URL / page for your Online Reputation Management strategy and push any negative SERP listings for brand searches.
That said, lets talk a bit about what Wikidata is and how it can help you in your SEO as well as getting some company / brand exposure.
Wikidata Is a Repository of Structured Data
Because, the data is stored with proper schema markups it is crawled and indexed by Google semantically so that the resulting SERPs appear in proper knowledge graphs and rich snippets.
The data can be read easily by both machines and humans.
Wikidata got its push back in 2014 when Google announced it would be shutting down one of its internal projects called Freebase, and would be migrating over all its data to Wikidata.
It has a very strong presence over the past decade in Google’s SERPs.
Wikidata (like Wikipedia) allows Google to connect semantically related entities
For example it can relate a married couple (celebrities) via the word spouse. As a specific example – doing a search for Brad Pitt spouse will give you Angela Jolie and Jennifer Anniston in a resulting search of Wikipedia. Wikidata works that same way to connect the dots.
Notable Concepts
Like Wikipedia, Wikidata also requires pages created to be about “notable concepts” or material entities (people, places, things).
This means that other sources / and recognized places online should be referencing your organization and/or linking to it.
Leverage Wikidata To Get Your Own Knowledge Graph
Google’s answer boxes in the SERPs to data-based information search queries – get their data from Wikidata.
Your Wikidata page will push the right Schema markup to Google so your brand, entity or organization will get its own a knowledge graph in the SERPs for your organization or brand name search queries in Google.
Getting a Wikidata page is very good for your SEO and will pass down a ton of link juice and authority signals to your website.
Wikidata example pages of organizations / brands
Here’s a few examples (you can get more by visiting Wikidata and doing a search).
Wikidata or Wikipedia – Where Do You Start?
If you’re debating on which page to create, I would start with getting a page on Wikidata first and then trying for a Wikipedia page after a few month or once you meet their stringent requirements. This is what Wikipedia says here about organization pages –
Wikipedia requires significant coverage in multiple independent sources for articles on organizations and companies per Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). Independent sources should provide enough neutral and factual information to write a proper article. You might choose to add to your own website a comprehensive list of any independent reliable sources, such as newspaper articles, that have been published about your organization. Such a list can help Wikipedia understand why you think your organization is notable.
So, for example, you’ll need to have coverage from top news sources like Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, Techcrunch, NewYork Times or other top news sources in your industry or country etc.
This is important if you want your company or brand page to stick after you take all the trouble in creating it.
If you don’t qualify then there are still other methods to go about getting backlinks from wikipedia and you may want to read – How To Get Backlink from Wikipedia.
Hiring An Experienced Freelancer
When you are creating your wiki page make sure that you hire a competent agency, freelancer or consultant to help you. They will typically have an aged account and on Wikipedia they may need to liaison with a real Wikipedia editor who has been around and is recognized.
Also, on Wikipedia – you should not assume that once your page is live and published – it will stick. If your organization doesn’t meet the requirements and you tried to blackhat your way into getting the page – it will probably be taken down in a few days and definitely wont stick for over a month.
Wikidata listing tend to stick more easily in the long term if done properly. The requirements are a bit more lenient.
Other Wiki Websites
There are also a ton of other “open” wiki sites that are made using the same CMS as Wikipedia and you could Google these and get your listings on them as well. I am aware that there were some mass software bots that would go out and create these pages automatically for you very quickly – but I would not recommend you use any of these tools or contract someone who would.
If you liked this method, make sure you check out this post on how to get a link from IBM.com which is a high authority backlink from a trusted site.