Jul 24 2008

Knol Knol Knol My Boat

By Jeremy Schoemaker 106 comments

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.

The WYSIWYG interface smokes Wikipedia’s. It accepts regular HTML too if you want to use that mode.

I love the ability of inviting others to help you with your articles.

Phone Verification - Google will verify your identity using your phone. This will add to the legitimacy of the articles.

Revenue Sharing - You can punch in your Google AdSense code and boom your making money if people read your article.

Licensing - You can pick from a variety of licensing rights on how your content can be used.

So I have a SEO CHALLENGE. Who’s SEO article on knol will rank the highest in Google? Will be interesting to see.

streko said on July 24th, 2008 at 2:32 pm

1st!

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OnlineGodfahter said on July 24th, 2008 at 2:33 pm

I will check the site now

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Feed My Wii said on July 24th, 2008 at 2:34 pm

i bet Aaron wall from seo book is going to give some people a run for their money on the top seo article

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TEKFIRM said on July 24th, 2008 at 2:39 pm

Typical Google always taking others’ ideas or buying them (youtube , google docs , soon digg …)

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TEKFIRM said on July 24th, 2008 at 2:40 pm

Congratulation lol , wait for your ShoeMoney shirt

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Walt said on July 24th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

I can’t wait to see how many Mesothelioma experts there are…

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Wall-e said on July 24th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

Aaron Wall

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corey said on July 24th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

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

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Jason Menayan said on July 24th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

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.

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Harald Johnsen said on July 24th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

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?

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David said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:02 pm

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.

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SEI Design Group said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:19 pm

Aaron for sure.

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Google Massacre said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

I am curious to see how Knol pans out for SEO and how Google integrates Knol content into the standard search results.

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meethere said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

Thats great..
i would write many articles as I am freelance writer

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Stephane Grenier said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:22 pm

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…

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Geiger said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:23 pm

Just posted my own first article. It’s nice not having to learn a new language like WikiPedia.

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ShoeMoney said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:25 pm

I think normal adsense revenue sharing.

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Movies said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:41 pm

so when did this one exactly launched ?

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Movies said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

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

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corey said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

i dont see any yet—i thought they had yet to include them in results

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Hustle Strategy said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

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.

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Popular Wealth said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

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?

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Andy Crofford said on July 24th, 2008 at 3:58 pm

This is pretty cool. I will have to write a couple of Knols.

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Anne Haynes said on July 24th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

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.

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Craig said on July 24th, 2008 at 4:10 pm

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?

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Movies said on July 24th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

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.

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Ben said on July 24th, 2008 at 4:21 pm

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.

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Movies said on July 24th, 2008 at 4:27 pm

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.

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Mubin said on July 24th, 2008 at 4:30 pm

You do know that the contest is not for who comments first right?

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Mubin said on July 24th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

Please cancel this contest. You will kill the internets.

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Movies said on July 24th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

If Google starts artificially altering search results than they’ve officially gone evil.

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Popular Wealth said on July 24th, 2008 at 4:52 pm

Challenge accepted I’ve added an SEO related knol. If its successful I’ll have expanded my SEO toolkit and hopefully so will everyone.

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Popular Wealth said on July 24th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

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.

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Chris Abernethy said on July 24th, 2008 at 5:01 pm

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.

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Chip said on July 24th, 2008 at 5:12 pm

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.

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seven grain salad said on July 24th, 2008 at 5:29 pm

Knol is tied to an author and his reputation. A cross between blog, wiki, and Google Docs.

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TEKFIRM said on July 24th, 2008 at 5:33 pm

yeah lol , but just a jk

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TEKFIRM said on July 24th, 2008 at 5:38 pm

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

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Stock Market For Beginners said on July 24th, 2008 at 5:41 pm

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)

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Anonymous said on July 24th, 2008 at 5:43 pm

My comments aren’t showing up.

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6 Step Checklist for On-Site SEO said on July 24th, 2008 at 5:49 pm

Knol..knol…knol? That was classic, for sure sign that you’re a dad Shoe!
Thanks for the heads up,
JR

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TEKFIRM said on July 24th, 2008 at 5:53 pm

like 8 months ago

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/encouraging-people-to-contribute.html

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Allen said on July 24th, 2008 at 6:04 pm

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.

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Paul said on July 24th, 2008 at 6:38 pm

Sheep huh?

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Zak Show said on July 24th, 2008 at 6:45 pm

Prettuy interesting, I think it will have a big success. All Google product rocks!

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Edgar said on July 24th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

I think its cool

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ShoeMoney said on July 24th, 2008 at 6:59 pm

trying to encourage people to get gravatars

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john said on July 24th, 2008 at 7:22 pm

Love the sheep, Knol looks good but I get up there and get writers block ! I forget Everything I know!

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Craig said on July 24th, 2008 at 7:49 pm

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.

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Andrew said on July 24th, 2008 at 7:53 pm

I don’t Knol too much about Knol, but I Knol Google has a way of turning everything it touches into gold.

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Melvin said on July 24th, 2008 at 8:00 pm

Wiki is pretty established so i dont think knol would be able to overcome it….even if its own by G

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TEKFIRM said on July 24th, 2008 at 8:01 pm

haha i was wondering , if you had a system like the more comments your avatar changes lol .

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Dan said on July 24th, 2008 at 8:02 pm

There is an actual legit way of doing that.

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NaldzGraphics said on July 24th, 2008 at 8:25 pm

But Wiki is useful though:)

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mcQ said on July 24th, 2008 at 9:15 pm

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?

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Tim said on July 24th, 2008 at 9:41 pm

cool

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ajaz said on July 24th, 2008 at 9:42 pm

Site looks good. I will be visiting it often.

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Mark - The Niche Store Builder said on July 24th, 2008 at 10:14 pm

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

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Patrick said on July 24th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

The initial impression of the page is pretty bad. Anyways, I checked it out yesterday, and seems like a good idea.

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Popular Wealth said on July 24th, 2008 at 10:28 pm

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.

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Wcnktm said on July 24th, 2008 at 10:34 pm

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.

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Action Figures said on July 24th, 2008 at 10:43 pm

Spammers, are you ready? Go get some…

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Free Niche Ideas said on July 25th, 2008 at 12:34 am

Yeah,

I’m surprised Google hasn’t got a hold on ebay yet.

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PPC said on July 25th, 2008 at 12:36 am

You got a point there. Aaron is a SEO legend! The crew from SEOmoz should also do well.

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PPC said on July 25th, 2008 at 12:38 am

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.

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PPC said on July 25th, 2008 at 12:41 am

Exactly! It remains to be seen, but I can hazard a guess that Google’s own vested interests will definitely take preference here!

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PPC said on July 25th, 2008 at 1:07 am

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.

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Agent Magenta said on July 25th, 2008 at 1:49 am

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.

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software said on July 25th, 2008 at 1:49 am

Google try to penetrate to every tiny part of our Internet life.

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funnyidiot said on July 25th, 2008 at 4:13 am

Thats very true , the way things are going it looks like google’s going to ruin everyone

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funnyidiot said on July 25th, 2008 at 4:13 am

And PPC Thats very true , the way things are going it looks like google’s going to ruin everyone

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wacky said on July 25th, 2008 at 4:29 am

It will take a lot of time for KNOL to catch up with Wiki,i mean Wiki is the Google in its field

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Agent Magenta said on July 25th, 2008 at 4:46 am

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…

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FunkySOuth said on July 25th, 2008 at 5:58 am

just made a page! seems good !

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Dick said on July 25th, 2008 at 6:26 am

Google can afford to buy everything he wants.

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Dick said on July 25th, 2008 at 6:32 am

Google recently bought a Russian search engine Rambler. I think this news will raise the value of the shares.

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Make Money Talks said on July 25th, 2008 at 7:34 am

Mine want be 1st for seo on knol

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Brennan said on July 25th, 2008 at 7:47 am

“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?

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TEKFIRM said on July 25th, 2008 at 8:11 am

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 …

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Geiger said on July 25th, 2008 at 8:58 am

You either buy the competition or build your own. Let the best site win.

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Geiger said on July 25th, 2008 at 9:04 am

I didn’t realize that they create a knol for your name as soon as you login. Very cool.

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Geiger said on July 25th, 2008 at 9:11 am

The interface seems a bit slow. I’m sure there will be many improvements to it upcoming.

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feel reality said on July 25th, 2008 at 9:48 am

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.

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team ray said on July 25th, 2008 at 10:13 am

wikipedia

all day

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KingMyron said on July 25th, 2008 at 10:19 am

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!

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China Business Watch said on July 25th, 2008 at 10:30 am

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.

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Paul said on July 25th, 2008 at 11:52 am

Alright I got one.

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Michele said on July 25th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

So far I really like this Knol way beter than Wiki - why not give Wiki a bit of competition?

Michele
http://www.bocanetworks.com

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George Boone said on July 25th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

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…..

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Rasim said on July 25th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

Just wait a few month… They need to get their checkout going first.

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Wesley said on July 25th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

I hate this, now google competes with us as well.. Nr 1 result -> Knol, nr 2 -> Wikipedia, … I can already see it.

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Sohan said on July 25th, 2008 at 10:06 pm

I agree with wesley. They’re really keeping the money within their family I suppose. Keeping their traffic with themselves.

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petnos said on July 26th, 2008 at 6:45 am

I think google done well again.

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Dick said on July 26th, 2008 at 7:39 am

Build your own is difficult. Buy is a simple solution.

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Belhard said on July 26th, 2008 at 8:49 am

Nothing personal. Only business… If they can buy Wiki they’ll create a substitute

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Erica DeWolf said on July 26th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

I agree…its going to rank high for wikipedia…

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Goran Website said on July 27th, 2008 at 7:38 am

Thats why they are the leaders

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Goran Website said on July 27th, 2008 at 7:40 am

Well said PPC, its all about business.

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Goran Website said on July 27th, 2008 at 7:44 am

Well Google saw the market share that Wikipedia had and they had to be better.

How much of WIkipedias visitors are from Google.

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Sohan said on July 27th, 2008 at 10:35 am

They would probably just put AdSense on Wikipedia imo.

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Technoinvent said on July 28th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

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

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Web Marketeer said on July 31st, 2008 at 2:50 pm

1st on knol would be my aspiration too! Expect to see loads about being a success on knol on blogs in the near future…..

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Web Marketeer said on July 31st, 2008 at 2:51 pm

Hear hear! Rand Fishkin and the crew are legendary. SEOmoz rocks!

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Web Marketeer said on July 31st, 2008 at 2:53 pm

What are algorithm updates all about then? Food for thought? Indeed!

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Web Marketeer said on July 31st, 2008 at 3:04 pm

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!

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Web Marketeer said on July 31st, 2008 at 3:06 pm

Loads, as Google gives immense preference and credibility to Wikipedia!

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