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I would like to know, from your experience, if having a link on Wikipedia could generate some traffic to the pointed site.

For example, the references at the end of this sausages page points to :

http://www.argentina.ar/_en/country/C161-the-gastronomy/...

do you think that site is getting some major traffic from Wikipedia?

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  • you can just e-mail the website author and ask him. – Evgeny Oct 30 '10 at 21:30
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    @Evgeny is that a joke? – systempuntoout Oct 30 '10 at 21:32
  • no. even though it is a website ... there is an actual human being behind it somewhere. and if not this website, then there are many other wikipedia linked websites you can try and ask. – Evgeny Oct 30 '10 at 21:40
  • It's nigh impossible to get legitimate content added to Wikipedia nowadays without some pedant rolling it back. Site links will almost certainly be removed, unless you can 'cite' your 'site' as a source of some info on the page (must be original content). – UpTheCreek Mar 10 '11 at 9:57
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One other thing to note, the links within Wikipedia are rel="nofollow" so you won't get much if any SEO value out of the links. Your only real value is people following the links. And again, as @Srirangan said please don't do it at the cost of degrading the Wikipedia page's usefulness. If you do, you are most likely going to get your changes removed anyways.

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Maybe, depends on your definition of "major traffic".

Please don't spam Wikipedia, please don't impact the quality of the pages.

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    Major traffic is minor traffic plus a little bit more of traffic. Thank you for your wise advice about spam. – systempuntoout Oct 19 '10 at 15:20
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    Best. Comment. Ever. – DisgruntledGoat Oct 19 '10 at 16:09
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Depends on the page. I have Wikipedia links and they don't deliver much traffic because they are on very specialized pages which don't get much traffic themselves. I know other webmasters who have links on very active Wikipedia pages and get a lot of traffic from them.

Sausages probably isn't a hugely popular page but it's not obscure. I'd say they get some traffic but probably nothing too significant.

But that traffic is somewhat targeted which is a plus.

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While you have no guarantee that you'll get substantial traffic increase by placing a link in Wikipedia, the visitors who reach your website through Wikipedia will be real qualified leads (at least this has been my experience with many products/services I've listed on Wikipedia). My point is, not much traffic but more likely to buy or do whatever you want them to do.

On a side note, I completely agree with @Srirangan that Wikipedia articles should not be diluted with marketing and sales info: make sure you list the right thing at the right place.

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My company's site got two links buried several pages deep on Howitworks.com and it resulted in significant traffic gains for quite an extended period. Wikipedia almost certainly gets more traffic than howitworks.com......though it depends on the detail page how many links you might receive. We didn't notice any SEO bump per se, but the traffic was nice regardless.

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Your question is irrelevant, because you can't do anything useful with the answer.

Consider the two possible answers to the question.

  • "No, Wikipedia does nothing to drive traffic". There is nothing to do.
  • "Yes, Wikipedia is a traffic source," but there is nothing to do, because only a jerk would plant content on Wikipedia for the purpose of generating traffic to his/her website.

Since you are not a jerk, then the question is moot.

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    what you say could be true, anyway your "answer" should be a comment. – systempuntoout Oct 19 '10 at 19:38

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