Google

Google search

Wikipedia frequently appears as one of the top Google search results^[1]^[2]^[3]. In fact, in 2006 Wikipedia was apparently the top recipient of Google Search's outgoing traffic.^[4] Google is also the top incoming external referer (sic) to Wikimedia sites.^[5] Partially because of Wikipedia's high PageRank score, it has become targeted by SEO / advertisements. In July/August 2015, Wikipedia saw a massive decline in page views, leading some to speculate that it had been penalized by Google.^[6] Business Insider attributed this drop to Google changing its algorithm to prefer official websites over Wikipedia.^[7] This has been contested by Wikimedia analytics, who noted that there was actually an increase in viewers from Google.^[8] Stone Temple Consulting compared rankings for Wikipedia and Google's own websites, and found that while Wikipedia's ranking has slightly decreased, it is still higher than Google's own properties.^[9]

Google Knowledge Graph

Knowledge Graph

In 2012, Google introduced a new feature to its search engine called Knowledge Graph. This summarizes information from around the Web about the search term in a box, similar to an infobox. According to various news sources, this feature has caused a decline in Wikipedia's page views.^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]

Relationship with the Wikimedia organizations

Presentation of different projects between Google and Wikimedia during WikiArabia 2019 conference in Marrakesh (in Arabic).

The Wikimedia Foundation has, controversially, referred to Google as its "partner", and maintains this language on their corporate website.^[15]

Donations

In 2010, Google donated USD$2 million to the Wikimedia Foundation.^[16]^[17] Initial development of Wikidata was funded with a donation of 1.3 million Euros, one quarter of which came from Google.^[18] Also: wmf:Press releases/Brin Wojcicki Foundation Announces $500,000 Grant to Wikimedia. Google's Matching Gifts program was listed as a "major benefactor" ($50,000+ donation) every year from 2010-11 through 2016-17, except 2012-13 when it was listed as a "patron" ($15,000-49,999).^[19] In 2018-2019, donations from Google's Matching Gifts program totaled $448,279.^[20] In 2019, Google donated another $1.1 million to the Foundation, and $2 million to the Wikimedia Endowment.^[21]

Various chapters have accepted Google Grants. Google also frequently sponsors Wikimania events.^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26]

Investments

As of June 30, 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation's investments comprised 187 shares of Google common stock, valued at $78,415. During the year which ended June 30, 2007, the WMF received a donation of additional 681 shares of Google common stock. The WMF sold all of its shares of donated Google common stock during the year ended June 30, 2007.^[27] The following year, WMF investments comprised 72 shares of Google common stock (valued at $37,902), which had been donated that year. During year after that, these shares were sold, "consistent with its policy to sell stock received through donations as soon as possible".^[28]

"Partnership"

In 2020, the Wikimedia Foundation Partnerships team published an "Overview of Wikimedia Foundation and Google Partnership".

Knol

In 2008, Google launched a Wikipedia competitor called "Knol", which failed to become popular and was deleted in 2012. Here are some example knols: about H1N1, Democratic globalization.

Wikidata

As noted above, Google funded development of Wikidata. They also announced that they were closing Freebase (which is used by Knowledge Vault and Knowledge Graph), and merging its content into Wikidata.

In 2019, Google appointed Wikidata founder and former WMF board member Denny Vrandečić, an employee at Google Research, as Wikidata liaison at Google, to "promote understanding of the Wikimedia projects within Google, work with Googlers to share more resources with the Wikimedia communities, and to facilitate the improvement of Wikimedia content by the Wikimedia communities, all with a strong focus on Wikidata".^[29]

Wikidata in India

In 2017-18 Google sponsored the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia India, and the Centre for Internet and Society in Project Tiger Editathon 2018. In 2019 Google gave the Wikimedia Foundation US$1,000,000 to run Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia (Project Tiger 2.0). In this arrangement Google wants translated content, especially in Wikidata, for languages of India.

Free/Open source

Some Google products are proprietary software and controversial. This includes Google Chrome, Google Docs, Google Drive, GMail, Google Meet, Google Analytics and Google Play Store.

To develop free software, Wikimedia Foundation participates in the Google outreach programs mw:Google Summer of Code and mw:Google Code-In since in these occasions Google does not ask to keep all rights reserved.

Google Summer of Code

Google Code-In

Wikimedia's use of Google products

Main article: FLOSS-Exchange.

YouTube

Some Wikimedia organizations maintain YouTube channels. The Wikimedia Foundation also used Google Hangouts from its YouTube channel for Wikimedia monthly activities meetings, until those meetings ended in August 2019.

Google Docs

Some teams in the Wikimedia Foundation use w:Google Docs, which contributes to the Wikimedia Foundation transparency gap. Docs is also used by the Wikimedia chapters of Finland, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria.

Google Form

Wikimedia Foundation Legal Team discouraged adoption of Google Form in 2022 for privacy reasons. If you are a Wikimedia Foundation staff, please adopt the Wikimedia Foundation LimeSurvey:

https://wikimediafoundation.limesurvey.net/

More info at m:LimeSurvey.

Google Apps

The Wikimedia Foundation uses Google Apps and Google Groups internally.

Google Translate

The Content translation tool, used on many Wikipedias, supports the use of Google translate, which is closed-source.^[30] (See FAQ.)

Google OCR

Contributors to Wikisource projects in certain languages not supported by Tesseract OCR use Google's OCR system.

Google's use of Wikimedia solutions

Wikimedia Enterprise

Google is a customer of Wikimedia Enterprise because it needed a service level agreement for massive Wikimedia API usage. Note: every single piece of data that Google gets from this service is somehow already obtainable by everyone in the world without this package. It is the intensive and massive demand of this data, and in customized formats, that makes this service useful. For more info:

https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/

Wikimedia development

Nearly half of Wikimedia pageviews on Desktop and over 40% of mobile pageviews come from users using Google's Chrome browser.^[31] As such, there are Phabricator projects for issues relating to Google's Chrome browser and Chrome for Android. The WMF also develops the Wikipedia app for Google's Android OS. (See Android team, FAQ, Phabricator project.)

The Knowledge Engine was a 2015 proposed project which would have included an internet search engine which would have competed with Google.

References

[1] ttps://econsultancy.com/blog/9009-why-wikipedia-is-top-on-google-the-seo-truth-no-one-wants-to-hear

[2] ttps://econsultancy.com/blog/8987-does-google-give-too-much-prominence-to-wikipedia

[3] ttp://www.thegooglecache.com/white-hat-seo/966-of-wikipedia-pages-rank-in-googles-top-10/

[4] ttp://www.skrenta.com/2006/12/wikipedia_is_the_top_recipient_of_googles_traffic.html

[5] ttps://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOrigins.htm

[6] ttp://blog.similarweb.com/wikipedia-google-penalty/

[7] ttp://www.businessinsider.com/wikipedia-sees-traffic-from-google-decline-2015-8

[8] :File:Google_referral_report.pdf

[9] ttps://www.stonetemple.com/google-still-loves-wikipedia-more-than-its-own-properties/

[10] ttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/13/google_stabs_wikipedia_in_the_front/

[11] ttp://wikipediocracy.com/2014/01/06/googles-knowledge-graph-killing-wikipedia/

[12] ttp://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/like-harvey-dent-google-has-become-two-face-1214953

[13] ttp://www.abondance.com/actualites/20140114-13550-le-knowledge-graph-de-google-ferait-baisser-le-trafic-de-wikipedia.html

[14] ttp://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/09/03/is-the-google-knowledge-graph-killing-wikipedia/

[15] ttps://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/

[16] ttp://mashable.com/2010/02/16/google-wikipedia-donation/

[17] ttp://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/feb/18/wikipedia-google

[18] ttps://techcrunch.com/2012/03/30/wikipedias-next-big-thing-wikidata-a-machine-readable-user-editable-database-funded-by-google-paul-allen-and-others/

[19] wmf:Benefactors/2016-2017 and earlier

[20] Fundraising/2018-19_Report#Matching_Gifts

[21] ttps://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/01/22/google-and-wikimedia-foundation-partner-to-increase-knowledge-equity-online/

[22] ttps://wikimediadc.org/wiki/Press:Google_joins_Wikimania_2012_as_a_Diamond-Level_Sponsor

[23] ttps://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania

[24] ttps://wikimania2015.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sponsors

[25] ttps://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania

[26] ttps://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sponsor/en

[27] Wikimedia Foundation financial statements, June 30 2007

[28] Wikimedia Foundation financial statements, June 30 2009

[29] :Wikidata:Project_chat/Archive/2019/09#Personal_news:_a_new_role

[30] ttps://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/01/09/you-can-now-use-google-translate-to-translate-articles-on-wikipedia/ .

[31] ttps://analytics.wikimedia.org/dashboards/browsers/

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