Google Launched Knol Yesterday… or what people are calling a “wikipedia killer”. Lots of people are trashing it but I gotta say I am pretty impressed. It has every component for success.
Here are some of my favorite things from the few hours I have been using it.
So I have a SEO CHALLENGE. Who’s SEO article on knol will rank the highest in Google? Will be interesting to see.
ZK @ Web Marketing Blog (23) 
Ricky Peterson (22) 
R Kumar (12) 
Holly Mann (11) 
Shanker Bakshi (9) 
Yisraeli Foods (8) 
Jacques Snyman | 3 Quotes (7) 
gurtey (7) 
Find Affiliate Offers (5) 
Michael Zhao (77) 
almir (76) 
fas (75) 
R Kumar (74) 
Rick Kats (70) 
Jay @ work from home (62) 
Dino (60) 
Dick (624) 
Goran Website (495) 
Melvin (330) 
Ben Pei (329) 
Taris Janitens (274) 
meethere (269) 
Tushar Dhoot (265) 
Tushar (260) 
Moneybites (259) 
Loads, as Google gives immense preference and credibility to Wikipedia!
Or give them a vehicle to promote themselves! Look at that aspect! The web trend is social, social is about individual recognition…..don’t worry, this is gooooood!
What are algorithm updates all about then? Food for thought? Indeed!
Hear hear! Rand Fishkin and the crew are legendary. SEOmoz rocks!
1st on knol would be my aspiration too! Expect to see loads about being a success on knol on blogs in the near future…..
I like the concept of google knol.
Like we can write articles if we have talent.
but the worst part is that , only people from few countries can write the articles
They would probably just put AdSense on Wikipedia imo.
Well Google saw the market share that Wikipedia had and they had to be better.
How much of WIkipedias visitors are from Google.
Well said PPC, its all about business.
Thats why they are the leaders
I agree…its going to rank high for wikipedia…
Nothing personal. Only business… If they can buy Wiki they’ll create a substitute
Build your own is difficult. Buy is a simple solution.
I think google done well again.
I agree with wesley. They’re really keeping the money within their family I suppose. Keeping their traffic with themselves.
I hate this, now google competes with us as well.. Nr 1 result -> Knol, nr 2 -> Wikipedia, … I can already see it.
Just wait a few month… They need to get their checkout going first.
So far the content quality on there is HORRIBLE as users scramble in a big goldrush to be first in a topic. http://knol.google.com/k/craig-goldwyn/cole-slaw/qIwcXEMu/zubLww#
As a person who actually uses wikipedia from time to time to gain knowledge about any given topic. I can’t help but look at the professional and authoritative way Wikis are written then look at knol and just shake my head…..
So far I really like this Knol way beter than Wiki – why not give Wiki a bit of competition?
Michele
http://www.bocanetworks.com
Alright I got one.
The competition between Wikipedia and Google knol is great. But I’m afraid the choice of different licensing rights can make the matter more complicated.
I bet whoever makes it to the top is going to be launching products in the up comming months. How to get the most read article on Krol!
wikipedia
all day
Seems to be a bit of a mess still. I lost one long article completely (didn’t appear to timeout), just didn’t publish or save. None of my articles are appearing when I search for them, I’m sure there will be a ton of duplicate content if any of it does make it live.
The interface seems a bit slow. I’m sure there will be many improvements to it upcoming.
I didn’t realize that they create a knol for your name as soon as you login. Very cool.
You either buy the competition or build your own. Let the best site win.
No they wont , it’s not in their nature … but since a lot of ppl will link to them and other social issues they will be high ranked for sure …
“There has been debate whether Google search results can remain neutral because of possible conflict of interest.” Do you think Google will give Knol special treatment?
Mine want be 1st for seo on knol
Google recently bought a Russian search engine Rambler. I think this news will raise the value of the shares.
Google can afford to buy everything he wants.
just made a page! seems good !
This is interesting, a search on google.co.uk for knol doesn’t bring up a result for knol, i got a news item in first place “knol lacks knowledge”, a blogger blog entry in second place (albeit the google blog) and third place was the wikipedia entry for knol…
It will take a lot of time for KNOL to catch up with Wiki,i mean Wiki is the Google in its field
And PPC Thats very true , the way things are going it looks like google’s going to ruin everyone
Thats very true , the way things are going it looks like google’s going to ruin everyone
Google try to penetrate to every tiny part of our Internet life.
Given some time to catch up knol will easily compete with wikipedia. Much better look and feel to it than wiki. Don’t forget that Google were late starters in the search engine game and they had no trouble catching up and then overtaking all rivals.
Google is just gaining more and more momentum. They are busy monopolizing the internet to such an extent that one has to wonder where it is going to end? I suppose it isn’t and that investing in Google shares can’t be a bad bet.
Exactly! It remains to be seen, but I can hazard a guess that Google’s own vested interests will definitely take preference here!
Now we will see if the preferential treatment Wikipedia received from Google is going to last with Google launching their own, improved version in the form of Knol.
You got a point there. Aaron is a SEO legend! The crew from SEOmoz should also do well.
Yeah,
I’m surprised Google hasn’t got a hold on ebay yet.
Spammers, are you ready? Go get some…
Nice interface… looks like an expert blog. On Firefox browser knol displayed a message “Who needs a search engine? Ctrl+F” i thought it will be google seach but opens the Frefox seach box.
update: Knols you write are not showing up in search unless you’re logged in hence nobody else sees them. I guess this is intentional so that Google can review Knols before they go public?
Save your energy for now, no word on wether or not its a bug or intentional.
The initial impression of the page is pretty bad. Anyways, I checked it out yesterday, and seems like a good idea.
I would have to vote for the Aaron Wall page – He has a content asking for comments/suggestions for improvements on the page as well.
With the reader base and network of friends… he will trump!
Besides… didn’t you say SEO is Dead?
Mark
Site looks good. I will be visiting it often.
cool
This is the best thing ever… When wiki was initially launched, a lot of websites which were used as EXTERNAL LINK for good articles (ex. Affiliate Marketing) noticed a rise in their PR and search engine ranking. I don’t think that would work here..would it?
But Wiki is useful though:)
There is an actual legit way of doing that.
haha i was wondering , if you had a system like the more comments your avatar changes lol .
Wiki is pretty established so i dont think knol would be able to overcome it….even if its own by G
I don’t Knol too much about Knol, but I Knol Google has a way of turning everything it touches into gold.
heh, I like the sheep. Knol is pretty cool but it will have a lot of ground to cover in order to catch up to what Wikipedia is today.
Love the sheep, Knol looks good but I get up there and get writers block ! I forget Everything I know!
trying to encourage people to get gravatars
I think its cool
Prettuy interesting, I think it will have a big success. All Google product rocks!
Sheep huh?
If you could spider wikipedia and paste pages into knol articles in an automated fashion one could build 11ty billion high quality pages on what could be a huge resource all with your adsense account.
like 8 months ago
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/encouraging-people-to-contribute.html
Knol..knol…knol? That was classic, for sure sign that you’re a dad Shoe!
Thanks for the heads up,
JR
My comments aren’t showing up.
don’t quite have the skills to muster a challenge for this contest..i’ll pass…but i’ll definitely be looking for something similar in the next few months (after I have learned a bit more)
i also wonder what knol.com owners will make , i think the site is in deutch and they are talking about google knol launching .
on their site they mention : NOTE: We sell steamcleaning equipment and don’t sell our domain !!
seem a lot of ppl want to buy that domain lol
yeah lol , but just a jk
Knol is tied to an author and his reputation. A cross between blog, wiki, and Google Docs.
I’ve joined the Knol world and wrote my first article. However, all I saw on the first page was medical articles. I hope people will start writing more content soon.
This definitely looks cool. It will be interesting to see how many people start dumping wikipedia content onto knol. It’s definitely cool to see that multiple articles can be posted on the same topic though, initially I was worried that there would be a landrush for the good topics, which would then be populated with crap.
Nice new default avatars BTW.
Yes, it will be interesting. I’ve added a Knol on SEO tools to see what the service has to offer. It looks like Danny Sulivan is the only other entrant so far.
Challenge accepted I’ve added an SEO related knol. If its successful I’ll have expanded my SEO toolkit and hopefully so will everyone.
If Google starts artificially altering search results than they’ve officially gone evil.
Please cancel this contest. You will kill the internets.
You do know that the contest is not for who comments first right?
I noticed a funny thing. If you go on knol.com (not owned by google…not yet), the only line in english is this: “NOTE: We sell steamcleaning equipment and don’t sell our domain !!” …poor guys, I believe they are receiving dozens of offers for their domain name.
I personally prefer the look and feel of Wikipedia, but I guess it’s because I’m so used to it. Haven’t played a lot with Know so far.
I don’t think that Knol will take Wikipedia’s place. At least not in the near future. Wikipedia is way to valuable to be replaced just like that.
I bet Shoe has an SEO article in the works, that will somehow rank higher than all others! Anyway, does this mean the end for Wikipedia then? Will Knol results start showing in the Google index in place of the wiki stuff?
How about some down side stuff: If you co-author an article can you share your AdSense revenue? Once you have your knol published, you can’t find it using the knol search feature. Um – let’s see – You can’t verify your name using your cell phone or ATM. I wrote about my experience on my blog last night – but seriously I can’t get my stuff to stick. My published article is live, then it’s gone and then it comes back. I’m totally confused with the experience. I think in general knol is a great way to bridge about.com and the wiki, I just hope it doesn’t turn into this super elite service that sticks their nose up to the little people.
This is pretty cool. I will have to write a couple of Knols.
The ability to add your adsense code is going to lead to some interesting results. I bet that webmasters will write a significantly higher percentage of the articles, remember that most people aren’t webmasters and don’t have an adsense account.
Will quality suffer?
It is crazy how much market share they have. You can join them or JohnChow them… Not sure what the best way to make money is from them.
i dont see any yet—i thought they had yet to include them in results
with google taking over the internet how can anyone or anything compete with it ? Would be interesting to see where Google will be in 2 years from now
so when did this one exactly launched ?
I think normal adsense revenue sharing.
Just posted my own first article. It’s nice not having to learn a new language like WikiPedia.
Hi Shoe,
Do you have any idea what scale of revenue sharing (Google Adsense) we’re talking about? I’d be curious to how it would compare with traditional Adsense revenues. As well, would the “free” knol traffic be worth it…
Thats great..
i would write many articles as I am freelance writer
I am curious to see how Knol pans out for SEO and how Google integrates Knol content into the standard search results.
Aaron for sure.
As of now not all knol’s show up in the knol search results.
If you do a search for SEO the only knol that comes up is Danny Sullivan, although Aaron Wall’s knol is much better.
I think the search feature on knol is not live, this is something that google needs to fix. Unless you know of someone’s knol page you can’t just find it within knol.
My prediction: Knol will absolutely destroy a lot of content creators / small web publishers who rely on search engine traffic.
Is Google getting too big and powerful? Absolutely. Are they competing with their partners and doing (with Knol) what they said they would NOT do? Certainly.
So the question is: How can I best take advantage of that?
I work for HubPages, a site that has been providing the same sort of service for almost 2 years now. Users can publish their own rich-media pages (including video, RSS and news feeds, images) and monetize via AdSense, but also via Amazon, eBay and Kontera.
The site has extremely high credibility with Google and gets provisional ranking within hours of publication.
We do, though, take moderation seriously to keep out the spam, porn, and other similar types of content.
It’s good to see Google enter the space. It validates our business, which has grown to over 150,000 unique pieces of content published by thousands of authors.
i think the more interesting question is how will google position the link to view the most popular seo knol compared to the #1 organic ranking of the seo wikipedia article
Aaron Wall
I can’t wait to see how many Mesothelioma experts there are…
Congratulation lol , wait for your ShoeMoney shirt
Typical Google always taking others’ ideas or buying them (youtube , google docs , soon digg …)
i bet Aaron wall from seo book is going to give some people a run for their money on the top seo article
I will check the site now
1st!